The Israel-Hamas Conflict: A Humanitarian War on Gaza, and the Status of Women’s Rights in the West Bank and Gaza
The UN agency promoting gender equality said Friday that 16,000 women and children were killed in the Israel-Hamas war, with an estimated two mothers losing their lives every hour. As a result of the more than 100-day conflict, UN Women added, at least 3,000 women may have become widows and heads of households and at least 10,000 children may have lost their fathers. In a report released Friday, the agency pointed to gender inequality and the burden on women fleeing the fighting with children and being displaced again and again. Nearly 2 million people are displaced and close to a million women and girls are in need of shelter and safety, it said. UN Women’s executive director, Sima Bahous, said this is “a cruel inversion” of fighting during the 15 years before the Hamas attack on Oct. 7. Women make up less than a tenth of the dead in Gaza and the West Bank. She expressed her support for the UN Secretary-General’s call for a humanitarian cease-fire and the release of all hostages taken in Israel. “These women and girls are deprived of safety, medicine, health care, and shelter. They are in a situation of starving and famine. She said that most of the people are without hope and justice. The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says nearly 25,000 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict, 70% of them women and children. The United Nations says more than a half million people in Gaza — a quarter of the population — are starving. The Hamas attack on Israel that started the war killed around 1,200 people and took many hostages. People are still being held captive in Gaza. Bahous spoke out about the shocking accounts of sexual violence that had been seen in the attacks by Hamas and called on the U.N. to give support to all those affected. The agency said women-led and women’s rights organizations are operating despite the hostilities. It found that 83% of women’s organizations surveyed in the Gaza Strip are at least partially operational, mainly focusing on the emergency response to the war. According to an analysis by UN Women, almost nothing of the funding for Gaza went to national or local women’s rights organizations. Bahous said there is a need for much more aid to get to Gaza, especially to women and children, and for an end to the war. She said this is a good time for peace. “We owe it to Israeli and Palestinian women and girls.” This is not their conflict. They need to stop paying its price.
The Palestinian death toll in Gaza has gone past 25,000 since the start of the war, the Gaza Health Ministry said Sunday.
The Health Ministry says at least 178 bodies were brought to Gaza’s hospitals in 24 hours.
There was a surprise attack by Hamas into Israel on October 7th which killed more than 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and took around 250 hostages.
Israel responded with a three-week air campaign and then a ground invasion into northern Gaza. Ground operations are now focused on the southern city of Khan Younis and built-up refugee camps in central Gaza dating back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation.
In the southern part of the tiny coastal enclave, hundreds of thousands have packed into UN-run shelters and tents, fleeing their homes. The UN says that 25% of the population of 2.3 million is starving because of fighting and Israeli restrictions.
The ministry says more than half of the people killed are women and children.
The Israeli military says it has killed around 9,000 militants, without providing evidence, and blames the high civilian death toll on Hamas because it fights in dense, residential neighborhoods.
Nearly half of the captives were released during a weeklong cease-fire in November in exchange for the release of scores of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Israel says some 130 remain in captivity, but only around 100 are believed to still be alive.