The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said Gaza women and girls are facing deepening dehumanization due to Israeli attacks, calling for a ceasefire to restore their dignity.
“Women and girls often go months without bathing, going through several menstrual cycles without cleaning themselves,” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said via social media X, Thursday (15/8).
Lazzarini described how Gazan women have to cut their hair very short because of lice, lack of shampoo, water, and combs. Some have even worn the same headscarf for the past 10 months.
The official added that many reported feeling unsafe and deprived of privacy and dignity in overcrowded shelters and displacement sites. The women also often avoided food or water in order to avoid toilets.
She also noted that the women told UNRWA teams that they struggled to see themselves as women. “This is another aspect of the deepening dehumanization of this war,” she said, quoting one woman in Gaza who said, “I don’t feel like a woman anymore.”
Therefore, UNRWA calls for a ceasefire in Gaza for these people to restore some of their dignity.
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Israel, which has ignored UN Security Council resolutions demanding an immediate ceasefire, has faced international condemnation amid its ongoing brutal attacks on the Gaza Strip since a Hamas offensive on October 7, 2023.
According to Palestinian health authorities, the Israeli offensive has killed nearly 40,000 people, most of them women and children. The brutal military action by the Zionist regime has also injured more than 92,000 others.
More than 10 months since the Israeli offensive, much of Gaza has been devastated amid a blockade that has crippled access to food, clean water and medicine.
Israel has been accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which ordered it to immediately halt its military operation in Rafah, a city south of Gaza where more than a million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was attacked on May 6. (Ant/Z-2)
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