Displaced Women in Gaza Face Increasing Sexual Violence

No doors. Little privacy. Restrooms that women say are the most common place for girls to be harassed. That is daily life in the camps for more than 1.7 million displaced persons in Gaza, where reported gender-based violence rose 60 percent in the first six months of 2026, according to the United Nations Population Fund, or UNFPA. Reports of sexual violence alone rose 61 percent in just the second quarter, UNFPA says. It points to nearly three years of war, which it says have stripped away much of the protection women and girls once enjoyed.The October 2025 ceasefire has done little to undo that. Palestinian health officials count more than 1,280 people killed since it took effect, and in July a senior United Nations official told the Security Council that Israeli forces had extended their control over about 70 percent of the strip. The Board of Peace, backed by the United States, unveiled a $2.4 billion recovery plan the same day the agency released its findings. But the plan hinges on Hamas disarming, and progress has stalled in a dispute over whether that or an Israeli withdrawal has to happen first.The UNFPA findings draw on cases handled by 10 organizations and on interviews with 230 displaced women at Gaza City and Khan Yunis. A UNFPA-led task force found that sexual violence, including rape and sexual assault, made up 2.7 percent of reported incidents of gender-based violence from April through June, up from 2.1 percent the quarter before. More common forms of GBV include denial of resources, emotional abuse, and physical domestic violence. The task force said incidents of rape and sexual assault “have become critical in Gaza.” But is this a surge in abuse, a surge in reporting, or both, and who can be held to account when women in a territory full of armed men fear naming them?What the Numbers Can and Cannot ShowUNFPA cautioned against reading the jump entirely at face value. Better access to services and confidential reporting means more survivors are coming forward. Still, the agency’s representative in the Palestinian territories, Nestor Owomuhangi, described the figures as evidence that safety and human dignity have broken down.The numbers come with a caveat about how to read them.“Treat them as reported cases, not a census of what is actually happening. UNFPA is measuring what reached service providers, not the true rate of violence,” a political strategist and the managing director of Nestpoint Associates, John Thomas, tells The New York Sun.Mr. Thomas applies the same caution to the jump in sexual violence reports.“A 61 percent jump in a category that still makes up only a few percent of all reported gender-based violence incidents can reflect more clinics, more awareness, and more confidential channels as easily as a sudden explosion in attacks,” he notes.Whatever the true scale, the conditions behind the numbers are easiest to see in the camps where displaced families live.Camps Without DoorsReports of forced and child marriages rose 123 percent in the second quarter compared with the first, with girls aged 12 to 17 among those affected. The report describes a family that began marrying off girls young because it could not afford to feed them. Girls orphaned during the war are especially vulnerable.One woman in a Gaza City camp told researchers she had attended the wedding of two girls from her family, ages 14 and 15. The Women’s Affairs Center in Gaza, a Palestinian group that works with UNFPA, has documented cases of married girls who suffered abuse and often became pregnant.As of May 11, 1,590 active displacement sites were hosting 1,708,467 people, according to UNFPA’s September safety audit. Hunger adds to the strain. A United Nations update published in August found that about one in five families was eating one meal a day, and half had run out of food at least once in the previous month.UNFPA points to overcrowded shelters, repeated displacement, unemployment and school closures, along with the erosion of family and community protections. The report cites a lack of doors and privacy in the camps and water and sanitation facilities with poor lighting, isolated locations and no single-sex options.Women told researchers that restrooms are where girls are most often harassed. Widows and women whose husbands have been detained or gone missing are at higher risk of sexual abuse and exploitation, and as supplies dwindle, some women are trading sex to survive. One woman reported to camp authorities that a man had pressed himself against her. Her neighbors told her she had “exposed” herself to it.Advocates caution against blaming the conditions themselves.“It’s important to be clear that displacement, war, overcrowding and poverty do not themselves cause violence against women. People do. What these conditions can do is give abusive men more control and greater access to women, leaving women with fewer ways to get away, seek help, report abuse or support themselves financially,” the founder of More to Her Story, Sarah Little, tells the Sun.Mr. Thomas says the physical conditions inside the camps give predators their opening.“Overcrowding, darkness, and dependence,” he continues. “When more than a million people are packed into informal sites with no lighting, no locks on toilets, no privacy, and no functioning police, predation becomes easy. Aid shortages then turn food, tents, and water into leverage.”Aid, Armed Groups and Gaps in the RecordUNFPA also links some of those conditions to Israeli military operations and restrictions on humanitarian assistance. The report faults Israel’s decision to bar 37 aid groups that refused to comply with its registration law, and its attempts to create a parallel aid distribution system, which UNFPA says weakened safeguards against sexual exploitation and abuse.Israel rejects allegations that it arbitrarily blocks aid, saying its screening and registration requirements are meant to keep Hamas from diverting supplies. Israel’s Supreme Court upheld the registration requirement in May, giving the groups 30 days to comply or stop operating.The report also alleges sexual misconduct by Israeli soldiers at checkpoints. However, an accompanying critique noted that none of the quotes provided indicated the women had experienced or witnessed such abuse themselves.The report makes no mention of Hamas, despite media investigations documenting allegations of sexual exploitation of Palestinian women and children by Hamas members and by people working for aid groups. UNFPA acknowledged that women in its focus groups might be reluctant to report abuse by Palestinian armed groups, so the study cannot determine how widespread such violence is.Earlier UNFPA figures hint at what the new report cannot measure.“UNFPA data found that armed groups accounted for nearly 20 percent of reported GBV cases in Gaza between June and August 2025, up from 14 percent in April and May. Nearly nine in 10 survivors were women and girls,” Ms. Little says. “But survivors often do not report violence due to stigma and fear, and in some cases because violence against women has become socially normalized within families or communities.”Mr. Thomas argues that “the public record tilts toward family violence, camp managers, and aid-related exploitation, which are real, while leaving Hamas and other armed factions in the shadows.”On July 31, Hamas said it had accepted a written second-phase agreement covering Israeli withdrawal and weapons arrangements, conditional on Israel’s full implementation of the first phase. Israel had not officially announced its approval at the time, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists that Hamas must surrender its weapons before Israeli forces withdraw.Research also makes clear that gender-based violence in Gaza predates the war, resulting from entrenched social norms and weak legal protections.A 2019 survey by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics found that 38 percent of currently or formerly married women in Gaza had experienced violence from their husbands in the previous year, and that no law in the Palestinian territories specifically criminalizes it.The destruction of Gaza’s infrastructure has disrupted the legal, health care and education systems that once offered a measure of protection, denying rape survivors essential services.Protection, experts say, starts with the camps themselves.“It’s critical to support local organizations in Gaza such as the Women’s Affairs Center and AISHA Association for Woman and Child Protection that help women and girls receive protection from male violence,” Ms. Little says.Mr. Thomas puts security first.“Secure the camps and get aid out of the hands of predators,” he stresses. “Lighting, locks, female site management, and real consequences for exploitation would reduce the daily risks UNFPA actually documented.”He is, however, skeptical that more funding alone will change much. “To provide protection, we need order,” Mr. Thomas says. “Not more press releases.”

Displaced Women in Gaza Face Increasing Sexual Violence

Displaced Women in Gaza Face Increasing Sexual Violence

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