Gaza women are the “last line of protection” for their families amid continuing attacks, hunger, and the onset of a harsh winter

This is what Sophia Kaltorp, the agency’s humanitarian affairs officer, said, who just returned from a visit to the Strip last week. She assured reporters in Geneva that we all are “We saw images of Gaza on our screens, but they were far from reality.”

She said that she traveled along the Strip “from Jabalia in the north to Al-Mawasi in the south,” where she met women living in tents, shelters and the ruins of their homes. They told her that despite the ceasefire, “The war is not over. The attacks are fewer, but the killing continues.”

She said: “I am not a woman in Gaza, and I cannot claim to know their pain, but I can convey their voices to you today.”

The last line of protection

Kaltorp said that what it means to be a woman in Gaza today is to face hunger and fear, and to absorb shocks and sorrows. “And protecting your children from gunfire and the cold of the nights. This means being the last line of protection in a place where safety no longer exists.”

She stressed that many women face “the choices of life or death alone,” noting that more than 57,000 of them are now families and “struggling to rebuild in an impossible situation.”

She explained: “The women showed me how water seeped into their makeshift tents, making the children shiver all night. This is what it means to be a woman in Gaza today, to know that winter is coming, and to know that you cannot protect your children from it.”

The UN official told the story of a woman she met whose house was destroyed, “but she returns every morning to the rubble to collect firewood, and burns the doors that used to shelter her family, just to prepare breakfast for her children.”

Many challenges

A month and a half after the ceasefire, food is still scarce, and four times more expensive than it was before the war – for example, the price of one egg is two dollars in the Gaza market – which is… “Out of reach of women who have no income.”

Kaltorp added that the women she spoke to had been displaced “countless times” – for one of them 35 times since the war began in October 2023 – and each move “means packing a little bit of luggage, carrying their children, their elderly parents, and choosing between one unsafe place and another.”

As she pointed out “The crisis of women and girls who have acquired new disabilities due to this war,” More than 12,000 of them live with long-term war-related disabilities.

The determination of the women of Gaza

Despite this miserable situation, the UN official said that the women she spoke to throughout the sector expressed their desire to work and lead. “And rebuilding Gaza with their own hands, and they are serious about it.”

Amid the challenges facing them and their families, she said that the women of Gaza need a continued ceasefire, the provision of food, cash aid, winter supplies, health services, and psychological and social support. She added: “They demanded work, justice, dignity, and the restoration of their rights. They also demanded that their children return to school.”

What it means to be a woman in Gaza today, Kaltorp said “It should galvanize us all into action, because no woman or girl should have to fight this uphill battle just to survive.”