According to the report titled ‘Scarcity and Fear’ published by the UN Women’s Unit, over one million Palestinian women and girls in Gaza have extremely limited access to food, safe drinking water, toilets, or clean water.
According to the report titled ‘Scarcity and Fear’ published by the UN Women’s Unit, over one million Palestinian women and girls in Gaza have extremely limited access to food, safe drinking water, toilets, or clean water.
Access to clean water is especially critical for breastfeeding mothers and pregnant women, who have higher daily water and caloric intake requirements. It is also essential for the ability of women and girls to manage their menstrual hygiene with dignity and safety. UN Women estimates that 10 million disposable menstrual pads or four million reusable sanitary pads are required each month to cover the needs of 690,000 women and girls in Gaza.
“In Gaza, we [women] cannot meet our simplest and most basic needs: eating well, drinking safe water, accessing a toilet, having (sanitary) pads, taking a shower, … changing our clothes…”
Gazan woman.
“More than ten thousand women have been killed so far, of which an estimated six thousand are mothers. Women who have survived the bombing are suffering daily starvation, sickness, and constant fear. The war in Gaza is no doubt a war on women, who are paying a heavy price for a war not of their making”, said Susanne Mikhail, Regional Director of UN Women in the Arab States in a media briefing in Geneva.
Since the onset of the current conflicts on October 7, 2023, it is estimated that over three-quarters of the 2.2 million people living in Gaza have been internally displaced. The majority of these displaced individuals currently reside in Rafah, located in the southern Gaza Strip, with no safe haven to flee to. Conditions in Rafah are reaching a breaking point due to the overcrowding of over a million people in a small area, compounded by an influx of more individuals each day. This situation serves to deepen pre-existing gender inequalities.
“I am new to having my period; I was adjusting and dealing with it at
Female, 13, student, Deir Al Balah
home, but now, I hate that time of the month; I feel so self-conscious and
sick to my stomach. I am using the occasion of the cold to cover myself
more and more; I hate for anybody to see me. I try to be invisible; I don’t
want to be seen or heard.”
Prior to October 7, access to safe and drinkable water in Gaza was already limited due to decades of Israeli occupation.
Before October 7, over 1.1 million Palestinians in Gaza lacked adequate water and sanitation services, with approximately 82.5% of Gaza residents (1.8 million people) reliant on trucked water as their main source of drinking water. Today, Gaza’s water supply has only reached about 7% of pre-October 7 levels. 1.7 million people are displaced, and the UN Women’s Unit estimates that 1.1 million women and girls are in need of sufficient and safe water access to meet their drinking and household needs.
Of the three main water pipelines from Israel to Gaza, only one is operational. Since November 19, 2023, the municipalities in Gaza have had limited capacity for water treatment and water quality testing.
Source: UNWomen