Israel's Crimes Against Women & Girls

Israel has effectively prohibited any aid from entering Gaza, as well as cutting power and displacing Palestinians multiple times. This creates a particularly harmful circumstance for Palestinian women. According to the UN "...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".  According to UN Women, thousands of women have become widows and thousands of children have lost their fathers.

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. 

HOW PALESTINIAN WOMEN DELIVER BABIES

180 Women give birth in Gaza every day. Women who are pregnant are forced to travel on foot miles to relocate to Israeli labeled "safe zones", only to have the Israeli forces enter the safe zones and begin military assaults on the civilians forcing them to relocate further South. For pregnant women, with no water, food or shelter from extreme weather, women and their babies are at risk. Women are forced into labor early because they are forced to walk for over ten hours upon displacement from Northern Gaza to Rafah (the very south). The pressure and stress on their bodies cause early labor. Some women have been forced to birth at home during the blackouts, with no ability to call for help. Cutting their own umbilical cords and walking on foot for help. Other women who birth at hospitals often find their babies murdered shortly after birth, due to the lack of Oxygen supply at the hospital, or Israel's forced famine. Multiple women are forced to suffer the same fate of early labor due to the stress they endure, and babies who are killed by Israel's catastrophic conditions, shortly after births. 

Many more women in Rafah and across Gaza are giving birth in broken down, desecrated hospitals, or tents - fully unmedicated. Many women have C- Sections unmedicated. During a C-Section, 7 layers of human tissue are cut and torn open then stitched back when the baby and placenta are removed. Palestinian women in Gaza are forced to feel every cut and tearing of flesh in agony, and every pierce of the needle as they stich her back, unmedicated. 

On the journey to the South, Israeli Forces raid refugee camps, tents and hospitals wreaking havoc on it's people. A Palestinian woman was assaulted by the IDF, as they placed her body down, and drove their tank over her pregnant belly until her fetus was birthed out. Israel has also raided hospitals, including Nasr Hospital and Al Shifa Hospital, in which they have stripped women naked in front of their families and brutally raped them. This includes at Al Shifa Hospital, a pregnant Palestinian woman seeking refuge was stripped naked in front of her husband and children, who were then forced to watch her rape at gun point. They then shot and killed her, murdering her unborn child as well.

PALESTINIAN WOMEN AND GIRLS IN TENTS

Palestinians are forced into displacement in Rafah, one of the most densely populated placed on earth. Israel has restricted all aid from entering putting Palestinian women and girls at great compromise for health and wellbeing. Women have zero menstrual products and are using tent scraps as cloths for hygiene. Additionally, feminine health is deeply ignored as many Palestinian women suffer from period irregularities, including Dysmenorrhea (severely painful periods) and illnesses such as Endometriosis (extreme pain), in which women are receiving no pain killers or treatment due to Israel's violence on healthcare. Additionally, women contract bacterial infections (which can be quiet common) causing them to continually bleed. However, Israel's violent restriction of aid means these Gazan women have no sanitary products despite the continual bleeding, and no medication or treatment. 

ISRAELI FORCES AND PALESTINIAN WOMEN AND GIRLS.

UN experts are alarmed over grave human rights abuses and violations of Palestinian women and girls by Israel. The UN voices alarm over arbitrary detention of hundreds of Palestinian women and girls including human rights defenders, journalists and humanitarian workers in Gaza as well as the West Bank.

According to OHCHR, many women have been subject to inhumane treatment, denied menstrual products, food and medicine, as well as face sever beatings. Palestinian women have been detained in Gaza, and allegedly kept in cages in the rain and cold, without food.

Experts express grave concern over sexual violence against Palestinian women and girls. "We are particularly distressed by reports that Palestinian women and girls in Israeli detention have also been subject to multiple forms of sexual assault, such as being stripped naked and searched by male Israeli Army officers." experts say. Women have been both raped and threatened with rape and sexual violence. Experts also noted that photos and videos of female Palestinian detainees in degrading circumstances were taken by the Israeli Army and uploaded online.

There are unknown number of Palestinian women and children who have reportedly gone missing after contact with Israeli forces in Gaza, according to the UN.