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The Immeasurable Endurance of the Women of Gaza

Women here have become both the primary caretakers and providers, sustaining their families in the absence of husbands, fathers, and sons.

A displaced Palestinian woman bakes bread inside a damaged building at the Islamic University in Gaza City on April 18, 2026.

Gaza—Women possess an invaluable strength—a resilience built on survival, not choice—and the women of Gaza have had to be especially strong. Since Israel’s genocide began in October 2023, they have endured one of the most severe humanitarian crises in modern history.

The numbers are harrowing: Over 12,400 Palestinian women have been killed in Gaza in the last two-and-a-half years, alongside more than 18,500 children. These deaths are not just statistics—they represent lives shattered, families torn apart, and an entire community living in the shadow of destruction. Yet, even in the face of such brutality, Gazan women persist. They carry their communities, serving as pillars of endurance amid the ruins of a society that has been all but erased.

Women here have become both the primary caretakers and providers, responsible for securing food, water, and shelter, caring for the injured, and sustaining their families in the absence of husbands, fathers, and sons. They are continually forced to make agonizing decisions as medical systems collapse and access to care becomes severely limited. Families are struggling to obtain treatment for injured or chronically ill children amid overwhelmed hospitals and critical shortages. Ongoing violence and restricted access to emergency services and the lack of equipment for the Civil Defense team have, in some cases, left families unable to reach or assist loved ones in time.

But in overcrowded displacement camps, in shelters exposed to the elements, and in makeshift homes that barely offer protection, they persist—not out of choice, but because there is no alternative. They are mothers who comfort children through amputations without anesthesia, daughters who bury their parents, and wives who carry the unbearable grief of losing a husband in a single air strike. Their suffering is both physical and psychological, yet they continue to care for the next generation, even as their own bodies give way to exhaustion.

Gazan women queue for hours for water while carrying infants. They search hospitals for missing sons. They remember the names of their martyrs and they pray for them, so their children are........

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