Palestinian Women in Wartime: "Challenges of the Humanitarian Reality and Transformations in the Social Role"

Introduction

This field study addresses the reality of Palestinian women in the Gaza Strip during the war that extended between 2023–2025, and aims to analyze the interwoven effects of the war on the social, economic, psychological, and political conditions of women within a complex humanitarian context characterized by occupation, siege, and repeated wars. This study proceeds from the hypothesis that the war did not merely create an emergency crisis, but rather deepened an existing structural fragility and reshaped women's roles within the family and society.

The results of this study showed an unprecedented escalation in rates of poverty, food insecurity, and unemployment among women, alongside a rise in displacement rates and the loss of privacy, and a decline in access to basic services, particularly mental health, education, and economic empowerment services. The results also showed that women bear doubled family burdens amid the absence of breadwinners and the collapse of protection and support networks, which negatively affected the quality of their lives and their ability to cope. The data also revealed an increase in manifestations of gender-based violence, and an accumulation of psychological pressures and traumas resulting from continuous instability. On the political level, this study showed that the decline in women's political participation is linked to a shift in priorities toward the demands of daily survival — amid a lack of livelihood security and the absence of a political horizon — rather than being a principled reluctance to engage in public life.