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What Gaza’s ceasefire would mean for women [1]

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Date: 2025-01

The past fifteen months of genocide in Gaza have been beyond devastating for women who have had to fight to keep their families alive and together in the constant shadow of death. These women have lived through every kind of loss imaginable – a kind of grief and trauma that most people will hopefully never be able to comprehend. Any ceasefire would mean a stop to this daily aggression. But it’s just the first step.

Of course, before the genocide, our lives as women were far from perfect in Gaza. Like women all over the world, we faced discrimination and struggles for representation, leadership and equal roles in politics and in our homes and wider society. But on top of this usual discrimination that women face everywhere, Palestinian women have also had to resist an occupation trying to erase our identity. This meant that we long lacked basic resources, food, water, medicines and more because of Israel’s siege on Gaza. We couldn’t move around due to Israel’s occupation and check-points. To be a Palestinian woman was to face endless tragedies from all angles.

And yet, these past fifteen months of hell have made us consider life before as a blessing. Nowhere was safe. Any building could be targeted by a bomb at any moment – whether a home, school, hospital or UN building.

471 days of genocide have left people desperate – people will go to extreme lengths to try to get essentials, women have to join the crowds of others pushing and shoving in queues for food and situations of violence escalate quickly. Israel has destroyed their lives and livelihoods and people rightfully start losing their minds out of extreme desperation. This is not who we are, but everyone is trying to survive. Gaza has turned into a jungle – though even jungles are more organised.

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The genocide has forced women to work on the front lines, in various fields, from nursing, caring, cooking, crafting, selling basic items and managing community initiatives that provide support to the displaced. Some women have worked to produce relief materials, and others engaged in small entrepreneurial projects to confront the deteriorating economic conditions. Many women and girls have had to abandon their hopes and dreams, careers, education and specialisms in order to provide for their community and families.

It means that women have stepped into even more unsafe spaces in order to make ends meet – exposing them to immense risks including verbal and physical harassment from men who aren’t used to women’s presence in some of these spaces. Moving around in public spaces more than usual has also further exposed women to the threat of being hit by bombs. Meanwhile, cloth tents where women do much of their trading, caring and working – do not protect them from shrapnel.

For example, I spoke to Fatima, a 27-year-old from Maghazi camp. She created a field for herself in the cigarette market – a market that usually only men enter into. She had previously studied English, worked as a translator before the war, with dreams of getting a scholarship to go abroad. But due to lack of internet or electricity, was forced to find alternatives, and created a profession for herself. Selling cigarettes, she was exposing herself more to dangers, having to travel around in areas and to tents that might be bombed in order to find people who could buy her goods.

A less spoken of, but pressing reality is that economic hardships have left some families unable to meet basic needs, leading them to drastic measures to reduce their financial burdens. In one increasing case, girls are being married off to wealthier families who are able to provide the essentials like food, water, and a semblance of safety. This was previously a rare problem in Gaza, only seen in the most marginalised communities, but has been increasing out of desperation.

With educational institutions bombed to rubble, other buildings turned into shelters and countless teachers lost to the genocide – girls are no longer attending school or getting an education. Other public spaces where girls may have felt safe, like libraries, cultural centres, clubs – are no longer available.

After the ceasefire, and with the help and aid of the international community as we rebuild our tattered lives, society must focus on supporting and rebuilding women’s resilience – psychologically, economically, and socially. Women need to be empowered in the fields they want to work in or excel at. This empowerment is critical for Gaza’s women because of what they endured during the aggression: displacement, psychological and physical violations, fear, and anxiety.

These experiences call on us to support women and girls in facing economic and social challenges, and to provide safe and sustainable environments to enable them to work and innovate, whether in times of peace or war.

I hope this ceasefire holds and the war against us ends. But even as news of a ceasefire came, the attacks intensified. In areas like Shuja’iyya in the north, my friends reported that it seemed like the occupiers wanted to finish them off before the ceasefire officially started. The so-called safe areas in the south were also targeted. I hope that the destruction stops, and everyone can return home, even to the rubble, to regain stability and escape the constant shadow of death that haunts Palestinians everywhere.

There are countless women like Fatima in Gaza who face restrictions imposed by society alongside a harsh Israeli occupation and unspeakable genocide – yet still they persevere. She creates her own future, despite everything she is fighting against. Each girl and woman surviving in Gaza carries with her a story of resilience that deserves to be heard.

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[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/gaza-ceasefire-deal-women-girls-persepective/

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