How women and girls in war-torn Gaza are coping with water, sanitation and hygiene collapse

Special How women and girls in war-torn Gaza are coping with water, sanitation and hygiene collapse
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With no end to the Israel-Hamas conflict in sight, more than a million displaced women and girls in Gaza have to endure daily challenges in increasingly dire conditions. (AFP files)
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Updated 19 May 2024
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How women and girls in war-torn Gaza are coping with water, sanitation and hygiene collapse

How women and girls in war-torn Gaza are coping with water, sanitation and hygiene collapse
  • UN Women has described ongoing Israel offensive as a “war on women” with at least 10,000 female deaths since last October
  • Deprived of access to adequate services, more than 1 million women and girls face daily challenges and serious health risks

LONDON: Deprived of adequate access to water, sanitation, and hygiene services, Palestinian women and girls in Gaza are bearing the brunt of the prolonged and deepening humanitarian emergency caused Israel’s ongoing military offensive.

With no resolution to the conflict between Israel and Hamas in sight, more than a million displaced women and girls in the embattled Palestinian enclave continue to endure daily challenges in increasingly dire conditions.

UN Women has described the Israeli military operation in Gaza, which began in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, as a “war on women,” with at least 10,000 killed since the start of the conflict — among them more than 6,000 mothers.

Those figures, published in April, are now likely far higher as Israel expands its operation and bombing raids into eastern Rafah — Gaza’s southernmost city, now home to some 1.4 million displaced Palestinians.

According to UN figures, this latest operation has forced an estimated 150,000 Palestinians to flee central and northern Rafah.

While the biggest risk to women and girls in Gaza is injury or death under Israeli bombardment, “the unhygienic conditions and lack of water in Gaza are also having a very negative impact on women and girls’ health and dignity,” Fikr Shalltoot, the Gaza programs director at Medical Aid for Palestinians, told Arab News.

Israel denies deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure, accusing Hamas of using residential areas for cover.

As summer approaches, soaring temperatures worsen the spread of communicable diseases caused by a lack of hygiene facilities, water, and access to proper food. The heat itself is also a significant danger to children and the elderly.




A Palestinian woman holding her children reacts outside a hospital where casualties are brought following Israeli bombardment in Bureij, central Gaza Strip, on April 8, 2024. (AFP)

“During a recent heatwave, a 5-year-old girl tragically died in her tent due to extreme heat,” Shalltoot said.

Analysis of satellite imagery by BBC Verify found that the Israeli operation in Gaza has damaged or destroyed more than half (53 percent) of the territory’s vital water and sanitation facilities.

The analysis, based on images acquired in March and April, also confirmed that four of the six wastewater treatment plants in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed. These facilities were critical to preventing sewage buildup.

Fidaa Al-Araj, Oxfam’s food security, cash, and protection coordinator in Gaza, said the water, sanitation, and hygiene situation facing women and girls in the enclave was “challenging,” leaving them unable to access clean toilets or private shower spaces.




A woman reacts upon seeing the body of a relative killed in Israeli bombing in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on April 20, 2024. (AFP)

“Having been displaced into camps or even in a host community, the numbers of people, of internally displaced persons, are very, very high,” Al-Araj told Arab News. “So, there is (overcrowding), there are many difficulties in having access to toilets, bathrooms, showers.”

She added: “Even if you have the facilities, and even if by any stretch they are enough for the IDPs residing in any given space, there is the issue of lack of running water to supply those facilities and to have them up and running all the time.




Displaced Palestinian women roll dough at their pizza making project at a makeshift shelter in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on May 18, 2024. Lack of water has made the work much difficult.  (AFP)

“So, the hygiene conditions are very compromised, to say the least. When it comes to women and girls, there are issues of privacy, which is completely lacking.”

Where washrooms are present, people have “to wait in line with all sorts of people, even strangers, men and women, just to use the toilet. You have people banging on the door of the toilet while you’re in there, asking you to hurry up because the line is still very long.”

INNUMBERS

• 700,000 Women and girls now hosted in Rafah who have nowhere else to go. 

• 93% Women surveyed who feel unsafe in their own homes or in displacement.

• 6/10 Women who reported complications in pregnancy since Oct. 7.

Source: UN Women

This also makes management of menstruation especially challenging, as women and girls “endure longer hours without changing a pad, without washing,” Al-Araj added.

According to UN figures, there are more than 690,000 menstruating women and adolescent girls in the Gaza Strip. But aid agencies, which have had very limited access to the enclave due to the Israeli blockade, have been unable to meet the high demand for hygiene kits.




A girl ponders over what the future holds for her as she stands between barbed-wire patches at a camp housing displaced Palestinians in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on April 30, 2024. (AFP)

And since Israel took control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing on May 7 and closed the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing, the already limited flow of commercial goods and humanitarian aid has been further strangulated.

MAP’s Shalltoot confirmed that women’s sanitary products were “scarce in the local market,” highlighting that this has had “a psychological and physical health impact on women and girls.”

She said: “They resort to homemade, makeshift alternatives, which negatively impact their health by putting them at risk of reproductive and urinary tract infections and protection-related risks.

“This also negatively impacts their psychological well-being, anxiety and insecurity.”

Even the simple act of taking a shower has been almost impossible for women in Gaza for several months.




A woman gives a baby a bath inside a tent at a camp for displaced Palestinians in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on January 18, 2024. (AfP)

“It’s very difficult to find a spot designated to take showers, and if it’s there, it’s very difficult to have water,” Oxfam’s Al-Araj said. “And if the water is there, it’s very difficult to find time to take an adequate shower.”

She added: “As a woman and as a mother of girls, I’ve been through all of this. To overcome these circumstances, you space out the shower times, so you take a shower when it’s absolutely needed.

“Sometimes you could spend a couple of weeks or even more without taking a shower.”

The aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres told the BBC that the destruction of water, sanitation and hygiene facilities has led to “disastrous health consequences for the population,” notably a significant rise in gastric complaints in Rafah.




A Palestinian woman brushes a girl's hair outside a tent at a refugee camp in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on May 9, 2024. (AFP)

Contaminated water has also led to a spike in hepatitis A cases, with women and girls facing a heightened risk of exposure to the disease due to their traditional domestic responsibilities and caring for the sick, according to UN Women’s April gender alert report.

The report, titled “Scarcity and Fear,” highlighted that the lack of adequate and dignified facilities also exposes women and girls to reproductive and urinary tract infections.

“This situation could develop into dangerous or concerning health conditions for the women and girls, and I’m really sorry to say that it’s not given priority,” said Al-Araj.

“The heightening demand on the time, resources, and capacity of the medical facilities and staff makes prioritizing women’s issues or girls’ issues very difficult.”

Moreover, there are no quick fixes. Even if sufficient aid is permitted to enter Gaza, facilities need to be carefully planned in order to meet the necessary standards of privacy, cleanliness, and safety.




A Palestinian girl carries a toddler as people flee Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip to a safer location on May 11, 2024, Israeli strikes. (AFP)

“It’s not enough to build a shower or a toilet,” said Al-Araj. “It’s not enough to provide it with water and that’s it. You have to think of the site … Is it safe for women and girls, is it accessible at all times … is it targeted maybe by different threats?

“You also have to think about the supplies. You don’t give a hygiene kit or a dignity kit once, for example, and that’s it, your work is done. You need to regularly provide those kinds of kits.”

Al-Araj also emphasized the need for “complementary services,” including extending responses “to enhancing access to sexual and reproductive health care system.

“I can only wish that the aftereffects of all of this wouldn’t linger for long or have irreversible results.”


 


France, UK, Germany urge ‘unhindered’ access for Gaza aid

France, UK, Germany urge ‘unhindered’ access for Gaza aid
Updated 54 min 27 sec ago
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France, UK, Germany urge ‘unhindered’ access for Gaza aid

France, UK, Germany urge ‘unhindered’ access for Gaza aid
  • “Humanitarian aid should never be contingent on a ceasefire or used as a political tool,” they said
  • The three European nations described the humanitarian situation in Gaza as “catastrophic”

PARIS: France, the United Kingdom and Germany Wednesday urged Israel to ensure the “unhindered” delivery of humanitarian supplies to the war-ravaged Palestinian territory of Gaza, warning against using aid as a “political tool.”
A fragile ceasefire since January 19 saw an influx of humanitarian aid into Gaza, before Israel on Sunday announced it was blocking deliveries until Palestinian militant group Hamas accepted its terms for an extension of the truce.
“We call on the government of Israel to abide by its international obligations to ensure full, rapid, safe and unhindered provision of humanitarian assistance to the population in Gaza,” the countries said in a joint statement.
“A halt on goods and supplies entering Gaza such as that announced by the government of Israel would risk violating international humanitarian law,” they said.
“Humanitarian aid should never be contingent on a ceasefire or used as a political tool.”
The three European nations described the humanitarian situation in Gaza as “catastrophic.”
The Gaza ceasefire deal’s first phase ended over the weekend after six weeks of relative calm. They included exchanges of Israeli hostages taken when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023 for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
While Israel has said it wants to extend the first phase until mid-April, Hamas has insisted on a transition to the deal’s second phase, which should lead to a permanent end to the war.
Of the 251 hostages taken on that date, 58 remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military has confirmed are dead.
“It is vital that the ceasefire is sustained, all the hostages are released, and continued flows of humanitarian aid to Gaza are ensured,” the three European nations said.
“All hostages must be unconditionally released and Hamas must end their degrading and humiliating treatment,” they added.


US holds secret talks with Hamas on Gaza hostages, source says

Palestinian Hamas militants keep guard on the day Hamas hands over deceased hostages seized during the October 7, 2023 attacks.
Palestinian Hamas militants keep guard on the day Hamas hands over deceased hostages seized during the October 7, 2023 attacks.
Updated 05 March 2025
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US holds secret talks with Hamas on Gaza hostages, source says

Palestinian Hamas militants keep guard on the day Hamas hands over deceased hostages seized during the October 7, 2023 attacks.
  • US special envoy for hostage affairs Adam Boehler has been holding the direct talks with Hamas in recent weeks in Doha, the source said

WASHINGTON: The Trump administration has been conducting secret talks with Hamas on the possibility of releasing US hostages being held in Gaza, a source briefed on the conversations told Reuters.
US special envoy for hostage affairs Adam Boehler has been holding the direct talks with Hamas in recent weeks in Doha, the source said, confirming a report by Axios.
Until recently the United States had avoided direct discussions with the militant group. The US State Department designated Hamas as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997.
The Israeli embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Boehler’s office declined to comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The source said the talks have focused on gaining the release of American hostages still held in Gaza, but also have included discussions about a broader deal to release all remaining hostages and how to reach a long-term truce.
US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff plans to return to the region in coming days to work out a way to either extend the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal or advance to the second phase, a State Department spokesperson said on Monday.


Israel’s cutoff of supplies to Gaza sends prices soaring as aid stockpiles dwindle

Israel’s cutoff of supplies to Gaza sends prices soaring as aid stockpiles dwindle
Updated 05 March 2025
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Israel’s cutoff of supplies to Gaza sends prices soaring as aid stockpiles dwindle

Israel’s cutoff of supplies to Gaza sends prices soaring as aid stockpiles dwindle
  • The aid freeze has imperiled the progress aid workers say they have made to stave off famine over the past six weeks
  • Israel says the siege aims at pressuring Hamas to accept ceasefire proposal

JERUSALEM: Israel’s cutoff of food, fuel, medicine and other supplies to Gaza’s 2 million people has sent prices soaring and humanitarian groups into overdrive trying to distribute dwindling stocks to the most vulnerable.
The aid freeze has imperiled the progress aid workers say they have made to stave off famine over the past six weeks during Phase 1 of the ceasefire deal Israel and Hamas agreed to in January.
After more than 16 months of war, Gaza’s population is entirely dependent on trucked-in food and other aid. Most are displaced from their homes, and many need shelter. Fuel is needed to keep hospitals, water pumps, bakeries and telecommunications — as well as trucks delivering the aid — operating.
Israel says the siege aims at pressuring Hamas to accept its ceasefire proposal. Israel has delayed moving to the second phase of the deal it reached with Hamas, during which the flow of aid was supposed to continue. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that he is prepared to increase the pressure and would not rule out cutting off all electricity to Gaza if Hamas doesn’t budge.
Rights groups have called the cutoff a “starvation policy.”
Four days in, how is the cutoff affecting Gaza?
Food, fuel and shelter supplies are threatened
The World Food Program, the UN’s main food agency, says it has no major stockpile of food in Gaza because it focused on distributing all incoming food to hungry people during Phase 1 of the deal. In a statement to AP, it said existing stocks are enough to keep bakeries and kitchens running for under two weeks.
WFP said it may be forced to reduce ration sizes to serve as many people as possible. It said its fuel reserves, necessary to run bakeries and transport food, will last for a few weeks if not replenished soon.
There’s also no major stockpile of tents in Gaza, said Shaina Low, communications adviser for the Norwegian Refugee Council. The shelter materials that came in during the ceasefire’s first phase were “nowhere near enough to address all of the needs,” she said.
“If it was enough, we wouldn’t have had infants dying from exposure because of lack of shelter materials and warm clothes and proper medical equipment to treat them,” she said.
At least seven infants in Gaza died from hypothermia during Phase 1.
Urgently checking reserves
“We’re trying to figure out, what do we have? What would be the best use of our supply?” said Jonathan Crickx, chief of communication for UNICEF. “We never sat on supplies, so it’s not like there’s a huge amount left to distribute.”
He predicted a “catastrophic result” if the aid freeze continues.
During the ceasefire’s first phase, humanitarian agencies rushed in supplies, with about 600 trucks entering per day on average. Aid workers set up more food kitchens, health centers and water distribution points. With more fuel coming in, they could double the amount of water drawn from wells, according to the UN humanitarian agency.
Around 100,000 tents also arrived as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians tried to return to their homes, only to find them destroyed or too damaged to live in.
But the progress relied on the flow of aid continuing.
Oxfam has 26 trucks with thousands of food packages and hygiene kits and 12 trucks of water tanks waiting outside Gaza, said Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam’s policy lead in the West Bank.
“This is not just about hundreds of trucks of food, it’s about the total collapse of systems that sustain life,” she said.
The International Organization for Migration has 22,500 tents in its warehouses in Jordan after trucks brought back their undelivered cargo once entry was barred, said Karl Baker, the agency’s regional crisis coordinator.
The International Rescue Committee has 6.7 tons of medicines and medical supplies waiting to enter Gaza and its delivery is “highly uncertain,” said Bob Kitchen, vice president of its emergencies and humanitarian action department.
Medical Aid for Palestinians said it has trucks stuck at Gaza’s border carrying medicine, mattresses and assistive devices for people with disabilities. The organization has some medicine and materials in reserve, said spokesperson Tess Pope, but “we don’t have stock that we can use during a long closure of Gaza.”
Prices up sharply
Prices of vegetables and flour are now climbing in Gaza after easing during the ceasefire.
Sayed Mohamed Al-Dairi walked through a bustling market in Gaza City just after the aid cutoff was announced. Already, sellers were increasing the prices of dwindling wares.
“The traders are massacring us, the traders are not merciful to us,” he said. “In the morning, the price of sugar was 5 shekels. Ask him now, the price has become 10 shekels.”
In the central Gaza city of Deir Al-Balah, one cigarette priced at 5 shekels ($1.37) before the cutoff now stands at 20 shekels ($5.49). One kilo of chicken (2.2 pounds) that was 21 shekels ($5.76) is now 50 shekels ($13.72). Cooking gas has soared from 90 shekels ($24.70) for 12 kilos (26.4 pounds) to 1,480 shekels ($406.24).
Following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, Israel cut off all aid to Gaza for two weeks — a measure central to South Africa’s case accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza at the International Court of Justice. That took place as Israel launched the most intense phase of its aerial bombardment of Gaza, one of the most aggressive campaigns in modern history.
Palestinians fear a repeat of that period.
“We are afraid that Netanyahu or Trump will launch a war more severe than the previous war,” said Abeer Obeid, a Palestinian woman from northern Gaza. “For the extension of the truce, they must find any other solution.”


Lebanon official media says two wounded in Israeli strikes in south

Lebanon official media says two wounded in Israeli strikes in south
Updated 05 March 2025
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Lebanon official media says two wounded in Israeli strikes in south

Lebanon official media says two wounded in Israeli strikes in south
  • “Israeli drones carried out more than one strike on a vehicle in Ras Naqura, near a rubbish dump” south of a UN peacekeeping position
  • The strikes come a day after Israel’s military said it killed a Hezbollah navy commander in the south

BEIRUT: Lebanese official media said two people were wounded Wednesday when Israeli drones struck a vehicle in the south, a day after a deadly raid and despite an Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire.
“Israeli drones carried out more than one strike on a vehicle in Ras Naqura, near a rubbish dump” south of a United Nations peacekeeping position, the National News Agency (NNA) said.
“Two siblings who were collecting scrap metal” were wounded and taken to hospital, it added.
The strikes come a day after Israel’s military said it killed a Hezbollah navy commander in the south, accusing the slain militant of violating the November 27 ceasefire.
The truce largely halted more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, including two months of full-blown war during which Israel sent in ground troops.
Israel has continued to carry out strikes on Lebanese territory since the agreement took effect.
Israel was due withdraw from Lebanon by February 18 after missing a January deadline, but it has kept troops at five locations it deems “strategic.”
The ceasefire also required Hezbollah to pull back north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border, and to dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south.
Last week, Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israeli forces would remain indefinitely in what he called a “buffer zone” in south Lebanon.


Paramilitary shelling of Sudan camp kills 6: activists

Paramilitary shelling of Sudan camp kills 6: activists
Updated 05 March 2025
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Paramilitary shelling of Sudan camp kills 6: activists

Paramilitary shelling of Sudan camp kills 6: activists
  • Wednesday’s shelling came a day after the group reported 80 casualties from artillery fire on Tuesday
  • The RSF assault on the camp began on Sunday, the second day of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan in the northeast African country

PORT SUDAN: Paramilitary shelling of a famine-hit displacement camp near North Darfur’s besieged capital of El-Fasher killed six people on Wednesday, activists in Sudan said.
The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), locked in a brutal conflict with the regular army since April 2023, pressed an attack on the Abu Shouk camp, said the local resistance committee, one of hundreds of volunteer groups coordinating aid across Sudan.
Wednesday’s shelling came a day after the group reported 80 casualties from artillery fire on Tuesday, although it could not confirm the exact numbers of dead and wounded.
The RSF assault on the camp began on Sunday, the second day of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan in the northeast African country.
Civilians had been shopping for Ramadan supplies when shells hit the camp and a crowded market nearby, killing six people, rescuers said.
The attacks come as the RSF keeps up its months-long siege of El-Fasher, the last state capital in the vast western region of Darfur still under army control.
Fighting around the city has seen the army and allied forces repel repeated paramilitary attacks as civilians bear the brunt of relentless shelling.
The RSF holds nearly all of Darfur while the army controls the country’s east and north and has this year made gains in the capital Khartoum and central Sudan.
The war has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people and uprooted more than 12 million, making it the “biggest humanitarian crisis ever recorded,” according to the International Rescue Committee.
In North Darfur alone, nearly 1.7 million people are displaced.
Around two million people face extreme food insecurity, and 320,000 are already suffering famine conditions, according to UN estimates.
Famine has hit three displacement camps around El-Fasher — Zamzam, Abu Shouk and Al-Salam — and is expected to spread to five more areas, including El-Fasher itself, by May.