Women in Gaza face ‘deepening dehumanization’ as UNRWA calls for cease-fire to ‘restore dignity’

By Merve Berker

Gazan women and girls have been facing “deepening dehumanization” due to Israel's attacks, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) on Thursday said, calling for a cease-fire to “restore dignity.”

Describing “what it is like to be a girl or a woman in Gaza,” Philippe Lazzarini said on X: “Women & girls can often spend months without taking a shower, going through several menstrual cycles without washing up.”

These women have had to “cut their hair very short due to lice, a lack of shampoo, not enough water or combs,” with some women wearing the same headscarf for the past 10 months, he lamented.

The official added that many of them reported feeling unsafe and deprived of privacy and dignity in overcrowded shelters and displacement sites, often skipping the toilet and avoiding food or water to cope.

He underlined that these women told UNRWA teams that “they are struggling to see themselves as women.”

Lazzarini criticized the situation: “This is another aspect of the deepening dehumanization of this war,” as he quoted one of them as saying: “I don’t feel I’m a woman anymore.”

He lastly called for a cease-fire in Gaza for these people “to restore some of their dignity.”

Israel, flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas.

The Israeli onslaught has since killed nearly 40,000 people, mostly women and children, and injured over 92,000 others, according to local health authorities.

Over 10 months into the Israeli onslaught, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water, and medicine.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which ordered it to immediately halt its military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.