Women in Gaza, who have been at the forefront of the humanitarian response during the 15-month war, are now leading recovery efforts and providing essential services amid the ceasefire. ActionAid is demanding that Palestinian women and girls, and the women-led organizations that support them are no longer sidelined but placed at the center of all decision-making about Gaza’s future. Women’s leadership and participation must be a non-negotiable priority in the rebuilding and reconstruction process.
Women and girls bore the brunt of the 15-month war in Gaza and continue to be uniquely impacted in its aftermath. The ongoing restrictions on access to essential services such as maternal healthcare and services for survivors of sexual and gender-based violence are a blatant violation of their rights.
Sahar, head of the Palestinian Development Women Studies Association (PDWSA), ActionAid’s partner in Gaza, which supports women and girls, said:
“Women today struggle with nearly everything. They lack access to basic services and aid. A tent is not a home. Women are struggling to meet even their most basic needs. We urgently need assistance and increased funding.
We need water, food, and medicine for women – these are urgent necessities. In the long term, we need to rebuild women’s homes, providing them with safety and security.
We need sustained support for small businesses so that women can support themselves and their families. The number of women providing for their families has risen significantly: many women have been widowed or lost their husbands due to imprisonment or injuries that leave men unable to work. We must empower them to help them support their families.”
Since day one of the war, PDWSA has been supporting women and girls by distributing essential items like food, hygiene kits, and winter clothes; providing psychosocial, practical, and legal support to women, including survivors of gender-based violence; and building key infrastructure such as private bathrooms and a displacement camp for women-headed households and their families.
Sahar said PDWSA managed to double its support for women during the war despite staff living through the same displacement and danger as the rest of the population and having to work under impossible conditions with little food, water, electricity, transport, and internet.
She shared:
“The war had a major impact on us in PDWSA. We have lost members of our general assembly, the board of directors; some executive staff members were injured and had to leave for treatment.
Like many organizations, PDWSA lost its main office…We lost everything – including our files and records. Now, we are rebuilding our work from the ground up. We need to restore our office, our services and our team to work again.”
Sahar is demanding that women and women-led organizations like hers are not just consulted but fully included and have a seat at the table when it comes to decisions about Gaza’s future and building back. Women’s perspectives have been sidelined for too long despite their critical leadership in crisis response and recovery; this must change.
Sahar said:
“We continue to play a role at our organizational level, within local community associations, and in small-scale local partnerships. But when it comes to large-scale decision-making – women’s representation remains very low.
We always demand that women be included in decision-making circles. That women have a voice in shaping humanitarian response, and be part of the institutions responsible for this work. When women are involved, aid reaches those who need it most.”
Randa, a lawyer with Wefaq Association, ActionAid’s partner in Gaza, which supports women and girls, said Gaza’s judicial system had ground to a total halt during the war – and that women had been particularly impacted. She said:
“There are no [centers] or courts. Most of the headquarters were bombed. There are cases filed and archived in the courts. All of this was lost. All of the identification papers and files were [lost].
Women’s inability to access justice during this war…has led to an increase in rates of violence. This war has helped men evade giving women their rights because of the absence of police and courts…. many men have stopped granting rights to women, such as expenses or child support.”
Without such crucial services, women’s rights organizations were forced to step in and plug the gap. The legal staff at Wefaq went to creative lengths to ensure women could access information and understand their rights, traveling from shelter to shelter under the constant threat of shelling to hold awareness workshops and legal consultations. They also ensured women could access their rights, for example, by supporting women going through divorce to see their children.
Randa said rebuilding Gaza’s legal infrastructure should be a major priority and that women should be central to the process.
She said:
“Judicial representation is an urgent need for women. A large percentage of women need to file cases. When I receive calls on my mobile [the question most asked is:] “When will the courts start working? Many women contact me, and they need a divorce, but with full rights.
Currently, we are in the process of a truce [in Gaza], but what is the vision after that? The matter is not clear to us, but we think that there will be work through committees, women’s leadership, and through institutions that address the judiciary.”
Riham Jafari, advocacy and communications coordinator at ActionAid Palestine, said:
“Women have been the unsung heroes during the last 17 months in Gaza, working at the forefront of the humanitarian response despite facing grave danger to support their peers and ensure the needs of women and girls are not overlooked. Their leadership must not be erased in the recovery process.
While the road ahead to rebuilding Gaza is long, one thing is clear: Palestinians must be at the heart of all plans for Gaza’s future, and women, including the women-led organizations that support them, must have a seat at the table. Only then will Gaza be able to build back in a way that takes their needs into account. We demand that women’s voices are heard and play a key part of shaping the future of Gaza.No peace, no reconstruction, and no future for Gaza is possible without the full inclusion of women.”
ENDS
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About ActionAid
ActionAid is a global federation working with more than 41 million people living in more than 71 of the world’s poorest countries. We want to see a just, fair, and sustainable world, in which everybody enjoys the right to a life of dignity, and freedom from poverty and oppression. We work to achieve social justice and gender equality and to eradicate poverty.