Being a woman during a war like the Gaza war means you are its most precise and painful target. This time, I will not write about your complex stories with your husband on an ordinary day, or your silent struggles with climate change. I won’t even touch upon your loss of job opportunities and your rights, forcibly taken in a sleeping society.
This time, we will unveil the true face of war and adjust the compass of understanding—not for the world to know this, but for you to know it, so you may stand taller. What remains is worth surviving for—both for yourself and for all of us.
Throughout the history of the Palestinian cause, women have been accused as the primary culprits, viewed as factories of generations and bastions of resilience in Palestinian homes. Attempts to suppress their will, strip them of their ability to build, isolate them, imprison them, and rob them of their sons, brothers, and husbands while restricting their movement and opportunities have never been enough for the occupier. Nor have these measures succeeded in breaking the victims, as the occupier wished. And now, the Gaza war has revealed its true objectives, tearing off the mask of false claims.
As a mother and woman who has lived through the Gaza war, I do not write based on UN reports or televised images from news outlets and social media. I write from the voice of my friend Maryam, who called me crying after she spent nights on the sand under the open sky of an industrial school courtyard. Five months pregnant and bleeding from the exhaustion of walking on foot through the “path of death” on Salah Al-Din road, she fled from north to south to save her children and unborn baby. She spent her days searching for a bathroom and scraps of cloth to stop the bleeding, unsure of what to do.
I write from what my eyes saw when I was detained for twelve hours with other women in the West Bank. By sheer coincidence, we had decided, stubbornly, to return to Gaza as the beast of war roared. Blindfolded, hands and feet bound, we endured insults and curses from Israeli soldiers before being dumped at Gaza’s borders like displaced refugees. We ran toward death, thinking only of dying in the arms of our loved ones.
I write about my teenage daughter’s tears when I could not provide her with sanitary pads or underwear because the “border lunatic” decided to prevent these supplies from entering Gaza. Targeting women’s dignity became the ultimate goal. We were forced to flee barefoot, without direction, from displacement to displacement, searching for shoes, a clean headscarf, and water to maintain our purity as we prayed to the heavens for deliverance.
I will not forget to write about my colleague Samah, one of the 60,000 pregnant women in Gaza during the war. After a long wait to conceive, she was forced to flee multiple times, carrying her tent on her back and her heavy unborn baby in her belly. When labor pains struck, she ran through the night searching for a mobile medical clinic after most hospitals were destroyed. She begged doctors to perform the scheduled C-section for her condition. Even after delivering her baby safely, Samah did not find rest. Returning to a tent after such a major surgery, amid a lack of clean water, clothing, and bedding, led to severe infections for her and her newborn. Her physical and emotional suffering dragged her into dark days filled with endless tears.
I write about the university student who lost her entire family. Left alone with her baby niece, she did not have the luxury of mourning. After burying her loved ones, she rushed to find water, diapers, and milk. She became a mother by surprise, with no preparation. Thousands of girls now wander through life without families or guardians, facing the constant risk of exploitation as they struggle to meet their basic needs.
I write about the more than 10,000 women who have been killed in Gaza—women who carried no weapons, threw no stones. All they held were their children, clinging to their sides, scraps of bread hidden in their bags, and a hope to return to the shadow of their destroyed homes. Yet wherever they fled, they were targeted whenever the killer could find no other “logical” targets.
I nearly forgot to mention the hunger of mothers in war. Around 600,000 women in Gaza face acute food insecurity. There is no chance of satisfying hunger from a plate shared between children and adults after a grueling daily search for scraps to feed their families. Women create something out of nothing, yet when food is scarce, they are set aside because silencing children’s hunger takes priority over silencing their own. In a world with no safety valve but women, they must straighten their backs and carry on.
This war has assassinated women’s wombs and the cradles of their hearts. It has robbed them of emotional safety, dimmed their spirits, and denied them even the chance to grieve. They run to fetch water, find bread, and treat diseases ravaging children’s bodies. They bury the sorrow of lost loved ones while wishing for a tent of their own—to escape relatives, remove their hijabs for a moment to ease the stifling heat, and lay on the ground like they did in the days of old in their homes. They long to cry when they wish, speak what they wish, and fear no one.
Today, the majority of those running from death in the overcrowded displacement zones of Gaza are women. The continuation of war means the continuation of targeting them and their children. After destroying all that resembles life, they are now the only targets left.