A Call issued by the Palestinian NGO Forum Combatting Violence against Women
Gaza’s women and women human rights defenders (WHRDs) are under threat of genocide
“The empty vicious cycle of our lives is a noose that is getting tighter around women’s necks in the midst of barbaric aggression, increasing their pain and suffering. Women in the Gaza Strip are not only victims of war, but victims of a war on their humanity and rights.”
This cry comes from a Palestinian woman defending women’s rights in Gaza. It is a daily reality for thousands of women and girls in Gaza, who are systematically targeted by the Israeli aggression that constitutes the crime of genocide and a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, the Geneva Conventions, and the Rome Statute.
A tragedy in numbers:
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza:
- As of September 10, 2025, the number of martyrs reached 64,656, including 9,735 women, in addition to 163,503 injuries.
- Since October 2023, 422 people have died from hunger and food shortages, including 145 children.
- Famine has been confirmed in Gaza (IPC Phase 5), where people are experiencing severe food insecurity between August 16 and September 30, 2025, with 641,000 people facing a catastrophic situation.
Women in Gaza face:
- Repeated forced displacement amid bombardment, with the lack of food and water in addition to unprecedented high prices, forcing women to face death and hunger on a daily basis.
- Deprivation of basic dignity kits, forcing women to take medication to stop their menstrual cycle due to a lack of basic supplies.
- Approximately 130 babies are born every day in the Gaza Strip, amid deteriorating health conditions and a suffocating siege that deprives mothers and children of the most basic medical and humanitarian care, according to Save the Children on April 2, 2025.
- There are documented testimonies provided by the Women’s Center for Legal and Social Counseling about Palestinian women being subjected to systematic violations, such as rape, torture, stripping and removal of headscarves for the purpose of humiliation, beating of their genital areas, harassment, and physical assault by Israeli occupation forces.
- Israeli forces continue to systematically target vital resources in Gaza, including fertility centers and hospitals, resulting in the destruction of thousands of samples, health complications for pregnant women, and the loss of women’s reproductive health, which the International Commission of Inquiry in September 2025 considered to be a genocide in the form of preventing births, under ongoing tragic circumstances.
- There are a large number of missing persons and martyrs under the rubble whose fate is unknown, including women and children. In addition, there are a number of women and children who were detained during the war. There is no information about them, but they have been reported missing.
Based on the commitments of the international community, we demand the following:
- We call on the UN Secretary-General to urgently call for a ceasefire and an end to the ongoing genocide, and to convene an emergency Security Council session, while ensuring that the veto is not used to block the resolution.
- Israel must be compelled to open safe humanitarian corridors for the delivery of food, water, medicine, anesthesia, and dignity supplies for women and girls.
- Stop targeting women’s rights organizations and women human rights defenders (WHRDs), and ensure their protection and ability to provide humanitarian services.
- Open an urgent and transparent international investigation to hold accountable all those who committed or contributed to these crimes, in accordance with the principle of universal jurisdiction.
- Declare Gaza a humanitarian disaster zone and activate international protection mechanisms for both children and women.
The killing machine in Gaza continues unabated, and the Zionist occupation continues to annihilate defenseless people with full US support and shameful international silence that makes the world an accomplice to the crime.
The mothers of Gaza are exhausted by hunger and disease, and their children fall into their arms, unable even to cry. Every day that passes without urgent action writes a new tragedy on the body of every woman and a stain of shame on the forehead of the world.
Together, the international community must raise its voice to save the women and girls of Gaza and stop the killing and starvation machine before it is too late.
We will not stop raising our voices, and we will not abandon the women who face death every day with unbreakable resilience.
Finally,
We salute all free and courageous efforts, including the Global Sumud Flotilla, in their attempts to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza. We affirm that the voices of women and women human rights defenders (WHRDs) in Gaza will continue to bear witness to crimes and demand justice, dignity, and freedom for the Palestinian people.
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