Fatima Faraz
THE ongoing war in Gaza has transformed every dimension of civilian life, but its impact on women has been especially profound.
Survival now demands extraordinary courage and resilience. Women give birth in hospitals without electricity or medical supplies, girls navigate ruins in search of clean water and families sleep in makeshift shelters after being displaced multiple times within a single year.
According to UN Women, nearly one million women and girls have been forced from their homes since late 2023. More than 84 percent of healthcare facilities in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, leaving women without adequate reproductive or emergency care. By 2025, UNFPA estimates suggest that over 11,000 pregnant women may experience severe food insecurity, while an additional 17,000 could face acute malnutrition.
These statistics, while staggering, fail to capture the daily emotional, physical and psychological toll that women endure. The burden of violence, loss and instability is carried quietly, often invisibly. Despite this, women remain largely excluded from formal peace negotiations and political decision-making. Traditional diplomatic efforts prioritize political elite and ceasefire agreements while overlooking those who sustain communities when institutions collapse. Peace is often framed as an abstract political goal, distant from the lived realities of those trapped in conflict zones.
In Gaza, women play an indispensable role in holding society together. They shelter displaced families, search tirelessly for missing relatives, care for the wounded and traumatized and keep communities functioning despite the absence of basic services and infrastructure. This labour is rarely acknowledged or valued, yet it is essential to the survival of Gaza. Women’s contributions are not supplementary to resistance and resilience—they are central to them.
Feminist peacebuilding offers a necessary shift in perspective. It does not rely on abstract theory but on a simple and powerful truth: those who bear the greatest cost of war must have a voice in shaping peace. When women are excluded from peace processes, agreements tend to be fragile, narrow in focus and short-lived. Including women expands the scope of peacebuilding by addressing how war affects genders differently.
It considers how the destruction of hospitals disproportionately harms women, how displacement increases exposure to gender-based violence, how caregiving responsibilities intensify during conflict and how women who emerge as leaders in crisis can guide reconstruction effort.
This approach grounds peacebuilding in lived experience. It recognizes women not only as victims of war, but as agents of survival, leadership and transformation. In Gaza, survival itself has become a political act. Women’s resilience, grief, organizing and care form the backbone of daily life. Their stories are not secondary to the conflict—they are the conflict.
Meaningful peace in Gaza will not be achieved through treaties alone or financial aid without inclusion. Women’s empowerment must not be treated as charity, symbolism or theory. It is a necessity. If Gaza is to be rebuilt with dignity, justice and hope, women must be recognized as the driving force behind its survival and its future.
—The writer is an independent researcher.
