“Take a deep breath and smell the clean air of Abasan.” This is the only wish you have, in October 2024, Arwaa 32-year-old Gazani who was a year of living – and raising his children – under Israeli bombs in the Gaza Strip. On January 28, she said, she had the most complicated experience of her life: giving birth in a besieged UNRWA school.
Without medical assistance, with tanks surrounding the improvised shelter and without even clothes to protect the newborn, on a cold January day Arwa delivered her baby surrounded by volunteers who did what they could.. Neither she nor her daughter received health care until 18 days after giving birth, when they were finally able to leave the shelter and arrived in al-Mawasi.
Fear, insecurity and lack of sanitary and hygiene products They have been a constant in Gaza since the attacks began on October 7, 2023. Just like bombs falling from the sky or destroyed buildings, death and hunger. At least that’s what the report says. Agents of change: the role of Palestinian women-led organizations in times of crisis, published by Alliance for Solidarity-ActionAid.
The analysis highlights, as the NGO itself explains, the “terrible impact of war and violence on Palestinian women and girlsfrom an increased risk of gender-based violence to profound psychological trauma. ” Although it also reveals “the extraordinary resilience they demonstrate daily as they lead community recovery and advocate for peace.”
An unprecedented crisis
“We are not talking about an extreme situation just because of the incessant bombings,” he tells ENCLAVE ODS. Raquel Martí, Executive Director of UNRWA, the United Nations agency that works with Palestinian refugees. The Gaza Strip, he says, is “the most dangerous place in the world.” And regrets: “Gaza is hell”.
And this highlights the conjunction of several problems that NGOs have described for decades as “the largest open-air prison in the world”. On the one hand, Martí recalls the forced displacements and the “illegal expulsion orders” of the Israeli government as the main ones. “Gazans had to move up to eleven times,” he remembers.
Because, he insists, “87% of the territory remains under expulsion orders”. This also causes “great hurt” among the population, especially among women. “Families must flee, Displacement occurs very quickly and, in too many cases, children are separated from their families.” said Martí.
And he adds: “Imagine the agony of your child being lost and not knowing if they are alive or not“. Something that has already happened to between 17,000 and 20,000 children in Gaza since the start of the war.
Furthermore, according to the Alliance for Solidarity-ActionAid, displacement causes “despair, insecurity and a feeling of abandonment” which “wreaks havoc” both men and women. This situation, they say from the NGO, is already causing an increase in suicide attempts, and they only hope that they will increase.
But mental health isn’t the only thing that’s deteriorating. Martí recalls that the Gaza Strip is a “fertile ground” for diseases. Without water, without hygiene products and without sanitary services availableinfections spread like wildfire.
Waste accumulates in the streets of Gaza: “there are no collection services,” remembers Martí. People get sick and women end up taking care of them. And, once again, women in Gaza are most exposed to infectious diseases.
Kirsten Sutherland, head of the Alliance for Solidarity-ActionAid humanitarian area, She was in the field only two months ago and explains how sad it is to see that women cannot wash on menstruation days or “that they stop eating and drinking the little they have to avoid not go frequently to the common latrines. This way, they avoid exposing themselves to sexist violence or harassment.
“Girls just want to go back to school like they used to, and women just want to be able to wash their hair normally,” sums up Sutherland, who focuses on one word: dignity. Because, he insists, Gaza is “a war against the dignity of women”.
Obstetric violence
And this loss of dignity is made explicit by the specific situation of pregnant and breastfeeding women in the Gaza Strip. Martí recalls that more than 160,000 women are affected.
In a war context, they are the ones who suffer from the lack of basic resources such as food or water. “They suffer from malnutrition, They don’t have vitamins, their basic needs aren’t met, and they can’t even get medical checkups. because there are no toilets,” laments Martí.
Stress and malnutrition prevent many breastfeeding mothers from producing milk and, therefore, from breastfeeding their babies. The head of UNRWA in Spain also denounces that this situation results directly from the Israeli government’s blockade policy: “Israel bans trucks from entering Gaza and those he leaves are minimal, they do not even cover the needs of the population.
In September, Martí assures, nearly one and a half million people – out of just over two million living in the Gaza Strip – were unable to receive humanitarian aid.
“Resilience required”
Despite all the challenges they face, Alianza por la Solidaridad-ActionAid emphasizes that The women of Gaza are a clear example of resilience. According to them, they have acquired “a crucial role in adapting to adversity”.
For example, the report explains, Palestinian women have begun to “act as mothers and fathers of their children,” which represents an “additional burden” for them, especially in a context of crisis like the one they are currently experiencing. .
Many women also become a sort of guardian for their orphaned nephews, injured brothers and sisters, or even sick parents.. Most of the Gaza women the Solidarity Alliance spoke with During their investigation, they claim to find themselves “in an inevitable situation in which they have no choice but to survive and provide for the needs of their children”.
However, the Palestinians’ enormous capacity for adaptation is a kind of poisoned gift. “Their resilience is obligatory; they resist because they have no choice,” says Martí.
And Sutherland says: “They are important inside and outside the home; they are the ones who look for food, the ones who heal, the ones who raise awareness about sexual and gender violence, they are the teachers, the doctors, the nurses, the volunteers in the camps. for displaced people…” But the rope is already becoming too tight, they both conclude.
