Gendered Experiences of Genocide in Gaza: Understanding the Specific Experiences of Women and Girls

I’m Becky, a Law student at Aberdeen University and the treasurer of Aberdeen SolidariTee. I wanted to write this piece to centre women and girls in the discussion of the current conflict in Palestine, as women and girls often face gender-focused challenges which go unacknowledged, and it is so important to speak about what people in Palestine are enduring.

This piece gives an overview of gender-considerations of the current conflict in Palestine, focussing on the realities of Palestinian women and girls and how the conflict is impacting them in concentrated ways.

Please note, this piece contains sensitive information about sexual violence, trauma, miscarriage, and the conditions of genocide.

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Women and girls face untold hardships during times of conflict, yet in many cases, a gender-sensitive understanding of the realities of survival of war and violence is missing in Western communications about the humanitarian impact of crises. The genocide in Gaza is of indescribable horror and unimaginable inhumanity, for men, women and children. More than 75,000 people were killed (Feb 2026) in the first 16 months of this two-year war in Gaza. The killing of women (femicide) and children, as well as gender-based violence, are tools of genocide, targeting more than just biological continuity, but community, culture, and identity. It is crucial that we describe and stay aware of the intentional persecutory, exterminatory nature of the genocide campaign, so as to support relief efforts and honour every tragedy. Here, I look at the uniquely female horrors of the conflict in Gaza, a population overrepresented in death statistics and underrepresented in peace talks.

Nine months into the current phase of conflict in Gaza, it was estimated by the UN that 63 women were being killed every day (July 2024), disproportionately affected by air strikes, health crises, and displacement, and making up 70% of civilian fatalities alongside children between October 2023 and January 2024 (Jan 2024). In only 3 months, nearly 1,000,000 women and girls were displaced, over 3,000 women were widowed, and 2 mothers were killed every hour (Jan 2024). An article in The Lancet (April 2026) reveals 75,200 violent deaths between 7 October 2023 and 5 January 2025, as many as 1 in 25 people are estimated to have been killed. Women, children (ie, younger than 18 years), and older people (ie, older than 64 years) comprised 56·2% of violent fatalities, totalling 42 200 deaths between 7 October 2023 and 5 January 2025.

In many situations of conflict, violence, and displacement, women are disproportionately affected by increased additional forms of violence, including gender-based violence within families, child marriage, and sexual violence. Sadly, in Gaza, many of these risks to women have also increased under experiences of genocide; desperation, inability for men to fulfill traditional gender roles, impacts of trauma, and conditions of displacement all contribute to a rise in gender-based violence. The marriage of young Palestinian girls and adolescents has increased - with the UN agency for sexual and reproductive health pointing to contributing factors including displacement, poverty and the collapse of social, legal, health and protection systems. This is another female-focused tragedy of the conflict.  UNFPA, the UN’s sexual and reproductive health agency, documented the experiences of Amal, who was just 14 at the time of being married. Amal said, “I told myself maybe life would be better. Maybe someone would care for me and I wouldn’t go to bed hungry. But my wedding night was very hard.” Sexual violence has also been used as a weapon, with Israeli soldiers using sexual assault to force Palestinians out of the West Bank, as documented in this article.

Women are also having to care for additional orphaned children, the injured and the elderly, and women are having to become new heads of households, whilst dealing with debilitating grief. The mental health of females in Gaza has suffered, with the UN reporting 75% of women having depression and 65% having constant nightmares and anxiety (March 2026). The conditions inside Gaza, with resources targeted intentionally by Israeli authorities and aid workers’ convoys being struck, make these caregiving responsibilities incredibly challenging. Palestinian journalist, Hind Khoudary, discussed caregiving duties with Palestinian mothers - “We only have three blankets. We share them. It’s OK if I can’t warm myself. My children can’t survive this cold without them,” is a quote from Suzan, and Maysoun states “I cut one flatbread into pieces for my sons and daughters. When they eat, it’s as if I ate.” Women are erasing themselves so others can survive. In a GTS report, an erosion of trust in support institutions and community cohesion is also recalled. This breakdown of community cohesion particularly affects women as the traditional homemakers, who describe more relational challenges, with compounding effects on local resilience, such as no longer being able to invite people over as they have nothing to offer them. 

Food insecurity, in other words, a man-made famine resulting from the destruction of croplands and a siege on aid and food imports by the Israeli authorities, also disproportionately affects women.  9 in 10 women in a UN survey (July 2024) say it is harder for them to access food compared to men. More than 1,000,000 women and girls (April 2024) have almost no food, no access to safe water, toilets or sanitary pads. Toilets are shared with 1,000 other people (Dec 2025) in many regions, creating great challenges for menstruating women and girls who don’t even have access to basic sanitary items or clean water. Hind Khoudary explores this, eloquently describing how ‘every menstrual cycle is a nightmare – a monthly reminder of how fragile dignity becomes in war. How pain becomes something we are expected to endure silently.’ According to UNFPA, there are over 690,000 menstruating women and girls in Gaza (April 2024), being exposed to reproductive and urinary tract infections – not to mention the risks involved with just searching for a bathroom. Women are being denied a very basic dignity, and there are reports of searches for menstrual suppression pills to deal with this. As disease spreads in these conditions, 1 in 4 women report skin infections, twice as many as men, and women make up most cases of hepatitis A and gastrointestinal diseases due to their traditional and increased domestic responsibilities, for example, washing and cleaning.

Tens of thousands of women (July 2024) are experiencing health complications, with Gaza’s hospitals forced to close. Miscarriages have increased by 300% (July 2024), which leads us to discuss the reproductive genocide women are facing - the systematic targeting of Gaza’s reproductive health, capacity, and autonomy to destroy its present and future generations, acting as a tool of annihilation. Genocides are inherently designed not only to kill a group of people but also to kill their future. For the Journal of Future Studies, Ivana Milojević writes, 'The bodies of future generations – those not yet born – are intangible and invisible casualties. Within their inner logic, genocides not only kill men and women; they must also kill the unborn'. Attacks on health infrastructure have affected 545,000 women and girls (March 2026) of childbearing age, with hospitals, maternity wards, and sexual health clinics bombed or closed. Despite being clearly identified as a health centre, the Al-Basma IVF clinic was bombed in December 2023, an attack in which some 4,000 embryos were destroyed (March 2026). This use of direct and structural violence to affect the reproductive capacity of women in Gaza amounts to no less than a reproductive genocide. In only 5 months of Israeli attacks, more infants in Gaza have died than in all of the world’s armed conflicts in the past four years (March 2026). Mothers are depriving themselves of food so that their babies can eat, dealing with pregnancy and childbirth in overcrowded shelters, and are often unable to produce milk with no access to clean water or any alternative. Women are having to give birth, without pain relief, in dirty rooms, and undergo caesarean sections without anaesthesia. The Israeli policy of preventing aid or commercial supplies from entering forces women to risk death while trying to secure food rations for their families. The situation mothers alone face is one of unquantifiable struggle and pain.

These disproportionate impacts and stories of painful distress make up just part of the experiences of over 1,000,000 women and girls in Gaza. They are facing unique struggles and pressurised hardships which should not go untold. They are being killed, displaced, starved, deprived of their dignity and sexually assaulted in ways exclusive to their sex and condition. To resist in the now, fighting for women’s freedom whilst respecting their agency, we should listen to their stories, explore their social media accounts, writing, poetry, join movements which prioritise awareness-raising, education and dialogue (including SolidariTee, in my case as a student), and fight for women to be included in peace talks. A look at ‘The Barefoot Walk’, for example, is a clear demonstration of women, mothers, standing together to represent women and demand change.

To the women and girls of Gaza – we do not forget you, we shall honour you.