Women in Gaza: What they need now as the ceasefire holds

Everything – starting with the basics for survival.

While the needs are enormous, there are some immediate priorities that women on the ground are highlighting.

1. Women and girls need food and clean water, but also the means to cook and store them. Soap and hygiene supplies to wash themselves and clean the few clothes they still have. Safe and dignified shelter, especially with winter approaching.
2. They need treatment and medicine for children suffering from diarrhea, infections, and fever. Health care is urgent, especially for pregnant women and new mothers who are too malnourished to breastfeed and need safe alternatives to sustain their newborns. Otherwise, more lives will be lost.
3. They need sanitary pads and facilities to wash during their periods. During the war, one in four women lacked access to reproductive health services and 700,000 struggled to manage their periods.
4. One in seven families in Gaza now depend on women, who have little access to resources and livelihoods. Women need cash transfers that reach them directly, to buy what they need most.
5. They need protection from gender-based violence, which rises sharply in every crisis when families are displaced, privacy disappears, and safety networks collapse. Women and girls must be able to seek help, speak safely, and access protection services without fear or stigma.
6. And, they need mental health and psychosocial support – spaces to talk, to grieve, to process the trauma of violence, loss, and daily survival. Every woman, every girl carries invisible wounds that food and water alone cannot heal.

In Gaza today, every daily act of survival – eating, bathing, caring for a child – has become a struggle. Women and girls need not only aid, but safety, care, and the means to rebuild their lives.

Because the crisis in Gaza is not gender-neutral, and neither can the response be.

Women and girls have borne the brunt of two years of war. They have been killed, displaced, widowed, and left to hold families and communities together amid famine and destruction. One in seven families is now led by a woman, most having been displaced multiple times.

When humanitarian aid overlooks gender, it fails. Food distributions that do not reach women-headed households leave children hungry. Health services without maternal care put mothers and newborns at risk.

If recovery efforts exclude women's voices, inequality will be woven into Gaza's future.

Gender matters also because women are not only victims of crisis, they are essential to recovery. Women-led organizations have been first responders throughout the war, providing care, protection, and hope even in the darkest hours. It is time to recognize and support them now.

The devastation in Gaza has taken a toll on everyone, but the ways in which the war has affected men and women, boys and girls are not the same.

For women and girls, survival is tied not only to food, water, and shelter, but also to health, safety, and care responsibilities that are often invisible yet life-defining. In Gaza today, over one million women and girls require food aid, and a quarter million need urgent nutrition support, including pregnant and breastfeeding women whose malnutrition endangers both their own lives and their babies'. Before the ceasefire, pregnant women were three times more at risk than the year before.

Women face barriers that men do not: lack of access to reproductive health care, the inability to manage menstruation safely, and heightened exposure to gender-based violence in overcrowded shelters and unsafe public spaces.

The emotional and social burdens are also heavier. With one in seven families now headed by women, many care for children and elders alone, often after multiple displacements.

Education has also collapsed. Over 318,000 girls have already lost two school years and risk losing a third. Every school-age girl and boy in Gaza has been denied their fundamental right to education, but for girls, this loss carries long-term consequences. Without access to education, they face heightened risks of exploitation, early and forced marriage, and a cycle of abuse, along with the loss of opportunities to earn a livelihood and rebuild their lives.

Women-led organizations in Gaza have been among the first and most enduring responders throughout the war. Even in the darkest days, when aid convoys could not move and communication lines were cut, women's groups continued to operate – running community kitchens, delivering food and hygiene kits, providing psychosocial support, and connecting displaced women to emergency health and protection services.

They have kept families and communities alive, often at immense personal risk. Many of these organizations are locally rooted, led by nurses, teachers, social workers, and activists who know every neighbourhood and understand the needs of women and girls. They have supported survivors of violence, pregnant women, and created safe spaces for children amid bombardment and displacement.

Despite this essential work, women's organizations in Gaza have very limited funding to continue serving the communities that need them the most right now. Their active participation is key to the success of any governance plans.

UN Women's added value lies in supporting and amplifying their work. For more than a decade, UN Women has partnered with Gaza's women-led and women's rights organizations, providing funding, coordination, and technical support. Working alongside the UN system, humanitarian partners, and women’s organizations, we ensure that every clinic, and food parcel reaches women and girls safely; that women's organizations are funded and represented in decision-making and reconstruction efforts.

The ceasefire must mark not only the end of fighting, but the beginning of recovery led by women and grounded in their rights. UN Women calls for urgent, gender-responsive action to make this a reality.

1. Ensure that multi-sectoral, life-saving assistance reaches women and girls safely and effectively, with protections built in to uphold all their fundamental rights – from food and shelter to health care and safety.
2. Adequately fund and integrate women-led civil society organizations in the humanitarian response. These organizations have the trust, reach, and credibility to deliver aid directly to the women and girls most often left behind.
3. Embed women's empowerment and rights from day one of recovery – this means going beyond merely consulting women and girls, but rather including them to lead the design, implementation, and governance of reconstruction efforts.

When we invest in women in humanitarian action, every dollar generates a return of USD 8 for the community. This is what will define a truly lasting recovery – one that rebuilds not just infrastructure, but equality, dignity, and hope.

Gaza's future must be shaped with and by women.