March 8, 2025
As the world marks International Women’s Day, the meaning of this celebration has been eroded for Palestinian women in Gaza amid Israel’s prolonged genocidal war on the territory.
The United Nations women’s agency has noted that women and girls pay the highest price in times of conflict — and during five months of war, women in Gaza have endured unimaginable suffering and challenges.
The war has had devastating impacts on Gaza’s female population. Thousands have been killed, with women and children comprising around 70 percent of the all victims in the Gaza Strip. Two mothers are killed every hour in the war, the UN reports.
These were strong, resilient women who excelled in journalism, engineering, medicine, politics, academia and other fields. Each had a unique story before the Israeli army ended their lives.
In a statement issued by the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, it said female Palestinian abductees are “subjected to psychological and physical torture in flagrant violation of all international norms and conventions.”
Hamas added that the suffering endured by these women exposed the “double standards” of Western countries, including the United States, in dealing with Palestinian abductees.
The statement came shortly after the head of the Government Media Office in the Gaza Strip, Salama Maarouf, said 12,316 women had been killed due to the Israeli regime’s genocidal war in the besieged territory.
“Women’s Day coincides with the continuation of the Israeli siege and the prevention of aid, as women live in catastrophic humanitarian conditions and suffer from starvation and thirst,” Maarouf said.
Hamas says Israel’s intensification of the siege of Gaza and preventing the entry of aid are parts of the regime’s genocidal war on the Palestinian territory. According to the Gaza government tally, the bloody Israeli onslaught also left 2,000 women and girls with permanent disabilities due to amputations.
Moreover, 13,901 women were widowed and at least 17,000 mothers lost their offspring, while over 50,000 pregnant women lost their unborn babies.
Backed by the United States and its Western allies, Israel launched the war on Gaza in early October 2023, after Hamas and other Gaza-based Palestinian resistance movements carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Flood against the Israeli regime in response to its decades-long oppression of Palestinians.
Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has led to the death of at least 48,446 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and left 111,852 others injured.
Translation: Ed Newman
Source: Radio Havana Cuba