Listen to the stories of Gaza’s women to fully grasp the horrors Israel is inflicting on us
By Olfat al-Kurd/The Guardian
Mon 25 May 2026 03.00 EDT
I survived months of bombardment before escaping. The systematic dismantling of our home has harmed every aspect of women’s lives.
Since Israel’s assault on Gaza began in October 2023, I have lost my father, my brother, his wife and their daughter. They are still buried under the rubble. My house, where we lived with my husband’s family, was destroyed by Israeli bombing. In 2024, after months of bombardments, flight and displacement, I managed to escape with my family to Egypt. I’ve been living here ever since, but the memories of life in Gaza are always with me. What happened to me reflects the reality that Palestinian women in Gaza continue to face during the genocide.
Since the start of the war, many women in Gaza have become sole providers. Countless numbers have been left with no protection or home, and many have lost children or their entire families. A recent UN report showed that Israel has killed more than 38,000 women and girls in Gaza during this war. A further 11,000 have sustained injuries causing lifelong disabilities.
I used to live in the Shuja’iyya neighbourhood of Gaza City with my family of six. Life under Israeli occupation was defined by violence, fear, and constant uncertainty. Yet within this reality, we built a life of dignity and continuity, with moments of joy. Remaining steadfast in the face of relentless violence became our form of resistance.
For me, that resistance was working as a field researcher for B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, documenting human-rights violations in Gaza long before the genocide. For my family, it meant holding on to the normality of daily life: walks along the Gaza seafront, weekend visits to my parents at Jabaliya refugee camp and visiting the fields of Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun. Places and times I carry vivid memories of, now all destroyed by Israel.
I was displaced six times before fleeing to Egypt in April 2024. In October 2023, my family and I left our home and spent days moving under heavy bombardment. We first sheltered in al-Shifa hospital, among overwhelming numbers of wounded and dead. Later, after being ordered to evacuate northern Gaza, we moved to al-Mughraqa and then to Khan Younis, where we lived in a crowded Unwra shelter, sleeping in a tent under heavy rain, struggling for water, food and firewood. Long queues for bathrooms became part of daily life. From there, we moved to Rafah, before eventually fleeing to Egypt.
On the day we were finally able to escape, I was overcome by a mixture of joy and sorrow: joy because my family and I had survived the genocide, and sorrow because I had never imagined that one day I would leave Gaza under such painful and devastating circumstances. The women of Gaza are fighting for survival. Instead of security they live in fear; instead of equality and justice, they are seeing their identity erased; instead of a future, they face existential uncertainty. It’s a reality in which basic living conditions are systematically destroyed and humanity is stolen. This is the prism through which to understand what is happening in the Gaza Strip: a comprehensive destruction of Palestinian society in which women are at the frontline of harm, but also at the forefront of survival.
Recently, I collected testimonies from women still living in Gaza for a report about Palestinian women under genocide. Their accounts paint a picture of suffering that goes beyond immediate needs. It touches their minds, motherhood, fertility and their ability to sustain life. I will never forget the story of Safaa al-Farmawi, whose 15-year-old daughter Ghazal was killed at an aid distribution centre in Rafah. During the famine, Safaa would go every day with her children to these aid centres in the hope of obtaining a food parcel or flour. The army shot and killed her daughter in front of her while she was trying to get food assistance.
Israel’s genocide is also about systematically dismantling all aspects of life and making a Palestinian future in the Gaza Strip impossible, by destroying the infrastructure and social foundations needed for the next generations to survive and develop. For those families who somehow escaped violence, they have still been exposed to horrific levels of harm. Women spend hours cooking over open fires, hand-washing clothes, searching for firewood and trying to sustain their families. And all this after healthcare and education systems in the Gaza Strip have completely collapsed due to the Israeli attacks. Many children have died from severe malnutrition. As for pregnant women, most have been unable to attend medical check-ups or follow up on their pregnancies with doctors. Many have also suffered from a lack of adequate food and essential vitamins, which in turn has led to malnutrition among their newborn babies. Many women have been unable to breastfeed their babies naturally because of their own poor nutritional condition, leaving them dependent on formula milk, which has been scarce and often unavailable.
Living in tents impacts relationships within the family. Entire families occupy a single space. There is no basic sanitation, and daily life means constantly coping with severe shortages of water and menstrual hygiene products. “The only solution was to use pieces of cloth or small articles of clothing that we cut up and folded like pads, a very difficult and disgusting situation,” one mother of six told me.
Women in Gaza are contending with inhumane conditions, but also with the crushing weight of traumatic experiences. “My life has been destroyed and turned into an ongoing tragedy. My soul is tired. My heart aches. I weep for myself, for the hell I have fallen into. I wish this were only a nightmare, and that soon I would wake up,” Nabilah ’Abd a-Nabi, 50, a mother of six from the northwest of Gaza City, told me.
The treatment of women is crucial to understanding the genocide in Gaza. It is not only directly killing women who bear the next generation of Palestinians. It is the systematic dismantling of women’s ability to sustain life – to feed and nurture our children, to keep them safe. Still, Gaza’s women persist in their struggle for normality. They fight for their survival, humanity, womanhood and identity, even as the genocide and destruction of Gazan society continue.
“Women of the world, I call on you to stand with us. We’ve been deprived of the most basic human existence. We’ve lost our homes, our freedom and our privacy. Our lives as we knew them have been destroyed,” pleaded Almaza a-Sultan, 46, a mother of five from Beit Lahiya. It’s time for the world to end the genocide. We can’t wait any longer.
Olfat al-Kurd is a field researcher for B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the occupied territories.
Mon 25 May 2026 03.00 EDT
I survived months of bombardment before escaping. The systematic dismantling of our home has harmed every aspect of women’s lives.
Since Israel’s assault on Gaza began in October 2023, I have lost my father, my brother, his wife and their daughter. They are still buried under the rubble. My house, where we lived with my husband’s family, was destroyed by Israeli bombing. In 2024, after months of bombardments, flight and displacement, I managed to escape with my family to Egypt. I’ve been living here ever since, but the memories of life in Gaza are always with me. What happened to me reflects the reality that Palestinian women in Gaza continue to face during the genocide.
Since the start of the war, many women in Gaza have become sole providers. Countless numbers have been left with no protection or home, and many have lost children or their entire families. A recent UN report showed that Israel has killed more than 38,000 women and girls in Gaza during this war. A further 11,000 have sustained injuries causing lifelong disabilities.
I used to live in the Shuja’iyya neighbourhood of Gaza City with my family of six. Life under Israeli occupation was defined by violence, fear, and constant uncertainty. Yet within this reality, we built a life of dignity and continuity, with moments of joy. Remaining steadfast in the face of relentless violence became our form of resistance.
For me, that resistance was working as a field researcher for B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, documenting human-rights violations in Gaza long before the genocide. For my family, it meant holding on to the normality of daily life: walks along the Gaza seafront, weekend visits to my parents at Jabaliya refugee camp and visiting the fields of Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun. Places and times I carry vivid memories of, now all destroyed by Israel.
I was displaced six times before fleeing to Egypt in April 2024. In October 2023, my family and I left our home and spent days moving under heavy bombardment. We first sheltered in al-Shifa hospital, among overwhelming numbers of wounded and dead. Later, after being ordered to evacuate northern Gaza, we moved to al-Mughraqa and then to Khan Younis, where we lived in a crowded Unwra shelter, sleeping in a tent under heavy rain, struggling for water, food and firewood. Long queues for bathrooms became part of daily life. From there, we moved to Rafah, before eventually fleeing to Egypt.
On the day we were finally able to escape, I was overcome by a mixture of joy and sorrow: joy because my family and I had survived the genocide, and sorrow because I had never imagined that one day I would leave Gaza under such painful and devastating circumstances. The women of Gaza are fighting for survival. Instead of security they live in fear; instead of equality and justice, they are seeing their identity erased; instead of a future, they face existential uncertainty. It’s a reality in which basic living conditions are systematically destroyed and humanity is stolen. This is the prism through which to understand what is happening in the Gaza Strip: a comprehensive destruction of Palestinian society in which women are at the frontline of harm, but also at the forefront of survival.
Recently, I collected testimonies from women still living in Gaza for a report about Palestinian women under genocide. Their accounts paint a picture of suffering that goes beyond immediate needs. It touches their minds, motherhood, fertility and their ability to sustain life. I will never forget the story of Safaa al-Farmawi, whose 15-year-old daughter Ghazal was killed at an aid distribution centre in Rafah. During the famine, Safaa would go every day with her children to these aid centres in the hope of obtaining a food parcel or flour. The army shot and killed her daughter in front of her while she was trying to get food assistance.
Israel’s genocide is also about systematically dismantling all aspects of life and making a Palestinian future in the Gaza Strip impossible, by destroying the infrastructure and social foundations needed for the next generations to survive and develop. For those families who somehow escaped violence, they have still been exposed to horrific levels of harm. Women spend hours cooking over open fires, hand-washing clothes, searching for firewood and trying to sustain their families. And all this after healthcare and education systems in the Gaza Strip have completely collapsed due to the Israeli attacks. Many children have died from severe malnutrition. As for pregnant women, most have been unable to attend medical check-ups or follow up on their pregnancies with doctors. Many have also suffered from a lack of adequate food and essential vitamins, which in turn has led to malnutrition among their newborn babies. Many women have been unable to breastfeed their babies naturally because of their own poor nutritional condition, leaving them dependent on formula milk, which has been scarce and often unavailable.
Living in tents impacts relationships within the family. Entire families occupy a single space. There is no basic sanitation, and daily life means constantly coping with severe shortages of water and menstrual hygiene products. “The only solution was to use pieces of cloth or small articles of clothing that we cut up and folded like pads, a very difficult and disgusting situation,” one mother of six told me.
Women in Gaza are contending with inhumane conditions, but also with the crushing weight of traumatic experiences. “My life has been destroyed and turned into an ongoing tragedy. My soul is tired. My heart aches. I weep for myself, for the hell I have fallen into. I wish this were only a nightmare, and that soon I would wake up,” Nabilah ’Abd a-Nabi, 50, a mother of six from the northwest of Gaza City, told me.
The treatment of women is crucial to understanding the genocide in Gaza. It is not only directly killing women who bear the next generation of Palestinians. It is the systematic dismantling of women’s ability to sustain life – to feed and nurture our children, to keep them safe. Still, Gaza’s women persist in their struggle for normality. They fight for their survival, humanity, womanhood and identity, even as the genocide and destruction of Gazan society continue.
“Women of the world, I call on you to stand with us. We’ve been deprived of the most basic human existence. We’ve lost our homes, our freedom and our privacy. Our lives as we knew them have been destroyed,” pleaded Almaza a-Sultan, 46, a mother of five from Beit Lahiya. It’s time for the world to end the genocide. We can’t wait any longer.
Olfat al-Kurd is a field researcher for B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the occupied territories.
