“Hi everyone. This is Bisan from Gaza. I’m still alive.” These are the words of Bisan Owda, a Palestinian storyteller-turned-war correspondent, which have echoed in the palms and pockets of millions of people around the world over the past year. Elsewhere in Gaza, nine-year-old Lama Jamous bore the weight of an adult-sized press vest for months, interviewing children in the camps and on the rubble of Gaza’s streets.
This week marks one year since October 7, 2023, when a Hamas-led attack killed nearly 1,200 people in Israel and took 251 men, women, and children hostage. It also marks one year since Israel began its most recent war in Gaza, which has been catastrophic for the territory’s 2.2 million people, nearly half of whom are children. For more than a year, women and girls like Bisan and Lama have been raising their voices to give the world a vital window into how war has destroyed the very fabric of life in Gaza. According to the UN, “no other armed conflict in the 21st century has caused such a devastating impact on a population in such a short timeframe.” In the past 12 months, nearly 42,500 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s war in Gaza, and over 96,000 injured. A further 10,000 Palestinians are reported to be missing or trapped under the rubble.
The impact on women and children has been devastating—more women and children have been killed in Gaza in the past 12 months than in any other conflict in the past two decades. Two mothers are killed every hour in Gaza, while an estimated 10 children per day have lost one or both their legs due to conflict. The UN reports that 17,000 children are unaccompanied or separated, and the war has given rise to a tragic new acronym: WCNSF (Wounded Child, No Surviving Family).
Israel’s broad restrictions on humanitarian aid, including food, water, fuel, medication, and electricity, have led to a devastating humanitarian crisis for innocent civilians. Famine has spread throughout Gaza, with children as young as two months old dying from starvation and malnutrition—while hundreds of trucks containing aid lie waiting at the closed Egyptian border. The destruction of 60 percent of water and sanitation facilities has led to outbreaks of disease and infection, including polio, with pregnant women and children particularly vulnerable. Restrictions on medical aid have resulted in horrifying scenes of children having limbs amputated and pregnant women forced to undergo C-sections without anesthesia, access to clean water, or bandages to prevent post-operative infection. In November 2023, the world watched in real time as 39 premature babies had to be removed from their incubators in Gaza’s Al Shifa hospital due to fuel shortages. Three of the babies died within days.
“Mothers face unimaginable challenges in accessing adequate medical care, nutrition, and protection before, during, and after giving birth…Becoming a mother should be a time for celebration. In Gaza, it’s another child delivered into hell.”
– Tess Ingram, UNICEF
Nowhere—and nobody—is safe in Gaza today. More than 60 percent of homes have been destroyed, as well as the majority of schools and hospitals. Gaza is now the deadliest place in the world to be a journalist, aid worker, healthcare worker—or a child.
While the scale of the crisis in Gaza is unprecedented, the story is not new. Although 90 percent of the territory’s population is displaced today, 1.7 million were already refugees prior to October 2023. Lama and children of her generation have only ever known a life of endemic humanitarian needs. Young women like Bisan will have already survived four wars that killed thousands of Palestinians in Gaza in the last 15 years.
All over the world, women’s voices are too often excluded from narratives around conflict, including meaningful participation in peace processes and political solutions. The international community must ensure that the rights of diverse Palestinian women and other particularly at-risk groups are protected and upheld in line with international law. While the world may now hear the voices of women like Bisan, and girls like Lama, the global response to their calls has remained woefully inadequate.
The Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC) echoes our previous calls for an immediate ceasefire, and a release of all hostages taken from Israel, over 100 of whom remain in grave danger in Gaza. We also call for the immediate reinstatement of US funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), following the examples of the 15 other countries that have resumed—and, at times, increased—their funding to the agency, including the EU, UK, Canada, and Australia. No other organization can deliver the assistance so urgently needed, at the scale and speed required, in Gaza today. For decades, UNRWA has been a central pillar of Palestinian life, providing humanitarian relief, healthcare, and education to millions of Palestinian refugees. Nearly half of Gaza’s students attend UNRWA schools.
The women and children of Gaza will not survive without full humanitarian access across the territory. As the crisis escalates across the region, the risks to civilians and vulnerable communities remain acute. Even if there is a ceasefire tomorrow, it will take decades to rebuild Gaza’s infrastructure. The health, psychological, social, and economic impacts of the war will be felt for generations. A call for a ceasefire cannot mean a return to the status quo. It is unacceptable that women like Bisan count their lives in days; that children like Lama can count their age in the number of wars they’ve survived.
“Palestinian women who have grown up under the occupation have been on the frontlines defending our lands, our homes, and our families… We therefore have not only the right, but also the ability, the expertise, and the experience to forge the path to a sustainable, just, and durable peace.”
– Randa Siniora, Palestinian women’s rights activist, UN Security Council, 2018
Amidst the devastation and despair felt by so many over this past year, in Gaza, Lebanon, and Israel, but also around the world, the growing chorus of voices calling for an end to violence remains an important ember of hope. Some of the strongest and loudest are the voices of women. Women, who bear the brunt of war but are so often sidelined by those who wage it, must be at the center of responding and rebuilding if we are to have any hope of a lasting peace.