Women, children take the brunt of Israel-Hamas war
Fleeing women walk with the children along a street in Gaza City on October 11, 2023.
What you need to know:
- Many of the women who attended a music festival in the Rave area were reported to have been killed and some raped.
- The World Health Organization last Thursday warned that the health system in Gaza was at a breaking point.
Women, girls and children are bearing the greatest burden of the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.
Reports indicate many women have been raped before being beheaded and burnt alive. Many of those who attended a music festival in the Rave area were reported to have been killed. Accounts from witnesses claim some were raped next to the corpses of their friends, and later killed.
Most of those massacred in Rave this week were young women. The music festival was taking place near the border with the Gaza Strip, which is a Palestinian territory.
Some 600-700 festival goers were believed to be missing in the immediate aftermath of the attack, the majority of them being women.
Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel on October 7 and one of the primary targets appeared to be the music festival. A 13-year-old Israeli girl narrated how she and her family missed death by a whisker as Hamas militants went door-to-door in the Kfar Aza kibbutz area.
The girl, in an interview with CBS, narrated how she and her family spent 16 hours hiding in a shelter. “The experience was very frightening, with gunshots all over. Inside the hiding shelter, I thought that was going to be my last moment and that of my family. I thought they would come, rape us before killing us. Being alive today is nothing but a miracle,” she said.
Another girl, 22-year-old Neta Portal, narrated to the BBC about surviving the horror of a Hamas attack in the same area. She explained how her boyfriend told her to get up and run or they would die. Neta was lucky to survive but was shot in the legs six times. She also reunited with her father, a policeman, in the attack. They hadn't spoken for six years after her parents' divorce.
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a speech Monday last week that among the "atrocities" committed by Hamas, women and children have been "executed with the rest of their families”.
Militants in Gaza are also said to be holding hostage about 150 people, most of whom are women, children and soldiers. More than a million people have fled their homes in the Gaza Strip ahead of an expected Israel invasion that seeks to eliminate Hamas’ leadership after its deadly incursion. Aid groups warn an Israeli ground offensive could hasten a humanitarian crisis.
The war has become the deadliest of five Gaza wars for both sides, with more than 4,000 dead.
The World Health Organization (WHO) last Thursday warned that the health system in Gaza was at a breaking point.
“Time is running out to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe if fuel and life-saving health and humanitarian supplies cannot be urgently delivered,” the organization said in a statement.
The WHO said it has documented the death of 11 health workers on duty attacks on Gaza.
World leaders have called for dialogue to end the bloody war. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has condemned the conflict and called for dialogue between the warring parties.
He noted that violence cannot provide a solution, and that only through negotiation leading to a two-state solution can peace be achieved.
In a statement shared with journalists, Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi said Egypt was committed to a two-state solution and prioritised national security.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered to mediate between Israel and Hamas, as his Foreign Ministry condemned civilian deaths.
China called for the protection of civilians and said the “way out of the conflict lies in implementing the two-state solution and establishing an independent state of Palestine.”
Saudi Arabia, which has been in talks for months with Israel about a potential normalisation agreement but is not part of the Abraham Accords, called for an immediate end to the violence.
