As a result of the more than 100-day conflict, UN Women added, at least 3,000 women may have become widows and heads of households and at least 10,000 children may have lost their fathers, AP reported.
In a report released Friday, the agency pointed to gender inequality and the burden on women fleeing the fighting with children and being displaced again and again. Of the territory’s 2.3 million population, it said, 1.9 million are displaced, and “close to one million are women and girls” seeking shelter and safety.
UN Women’s executive director, Sima Bahous, said this is “a cruel inversion” of fighting during the 15 years before the beginning of the Gaza war on Oct. 7. Previously, she said, 67% of all civilians killed in Gaza and the West Bank were men and less than 14% were women.
She echoed UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ calls for a humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza.
“However much we mourn the situation of the women and girls of Gaza today, we will mourn further tomorrow without unrestricted humanitarian assistance and an end to the destruction and killing,” Bahous said in a statement accompanying the report.
“These women and girls are deprived of safety, medicine, health care, and shelter. They face imminent starvation and famine. Most of all they are deprived of hope and justice,” she said.
The Israeli regime waged the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian Resistance movement Hamas carried out the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s atrocities against Palestinians.
The Tel Aviv regime has also imposed a “complete siege” on the territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food, and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.
The health ministry in Gaza says nearly 25,000 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict, 70% of them women and children. The United Nations says more than a half million people in Gaza — a quarter of the population — are starving.
AMK/PR