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UN PhotoGAZA / WOMEN STRUGGLE
STORY: GAZA / WOMEN STRUGGLE
TRT: 06:05
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ARABIC / NATS
DATELINE: 16 APRIL 2026, KHAN YOUNIS
1. Various shots, Jalal Street, west of Khan Younis city
2. Various shots, the elderly woman, Naghain Bin Issa, working on an old sewing machine
3. Various shots, Naghain Bin Issa speaking with her female customers.
4. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Naghain Bin Issa, Gaza resident:
“This profession is exhausting, but who will feed us or give us water? Without this sewing machine—and thanks to our neighbor who allowed me to work in his space—I wouldn’t have been able to continue. I was forced into sewing. In the past, we relied on social welfare assistance, but it no longer exists. So I go to our neighbor and ask to use his place, and he helps me. We can’t do more than that; we are just trying to live like everyone else.” 5. Various shots, Naghain Bin Issa working on an old sewing machine.
6. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Naghain Bin Issa, Gaza resident:
“These scissors used to cost five shekels; now I bought them for fifteen. These threads used to cost three shekels; now they’re fifteen. A meter of fabric used to cost half a shekel; now it’s three. I have no choice but to buy them. Everything here has become more expensive because of the war and because these goods are no longer entering the Gaza Strip. Sometimes we go to the market and can’t even find thread.”
7. Various shots, Naghain Bin Issa speaking with her female customers and leaving workplace
8. Various shots, Joud Kawarea working at a stall selling ready-made clothes near Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip
9. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Joud Kawarea, Gaza resident:
“Today, after losing my loved ones—my husband, as well as my mother and father—I thank God. I turned to working in a ready-made clothing business. I now buy clothes and sell them so I can support myself and my children. Thank God, but the situation is not suitable for me. After work, I still have to go home to cook, prepare bread for my children, and do the washing. I have no time. I leave for work at six in the morning and return at five in the evening.”
10. Various shots, Joud Kawarea selling ready-made clothes to her customers
11. Various shots, displacement tents across the Gaza Strip
12. Various shots, women and children standing in lines to obtain safe drinking water
13. Various shots, women carrying containers filled with safe drinking water after waiting in line
Women in Gaza are fighting a different kind of battle for survival. Thousands of widows have become the sole breadwinners for their families amid a total economic collapse and a sharp rise in the cost of living.
On Jalal Street, west of Khan Younis, elderly Naghain Bin Issa sits behind a worn-out sewing machine, carefully moving her arms as she repairs clothes for her female customers. This work was not a choice, but a necessity imposed by war after the social assistance her family once relied on came to a halt.
Bin Issa said, “This profession is exhausting, but who will feed us or give us water? Without this machine—and thanks to our neighbor who allowed me to work in his place—I wouldn’t have been able to continue. I was forced into sewing after social welfare support stopped.”
Like many small-scale workers, Bin Issa faces extreme surges in the prices of raw materials due to restrictions on goods entering the Gaza Strip. She added, “Scissors that used to cost five shekels now cost fifteen. Thread has gone from three shekels to fifteen. Even a meter of fabric has increased sixfold. Sometimes we go to the market and can’t even find thread.”
Nearby, close to Nasser Hospital, Joud Kawarea runs a small stall selling ready-made clothes, struggling to balance long working hours—from six in the morning until five in the evening—with her responsibilities as a mother in an environment lacking even the most basic necessities.
Kawarea, who lost her husband and both parents in the war, said: “I turned to selling clothes so I can support myself and my children. But after work, I still have to go home to cook, prepare bread, and do the washing… I have no time to rest.”
The stories of Bin Issa and Kawarea reflect a broader reality highlighted by the latest data from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, which indicates that women are paying the highest price in this war. The number of widows has risen to 22,057, while the percentage of female-headed households has increased from 12% before the war to nearly 18% by the end of 2025.
Meanwhile, UN Women estimates that one in every seven households in Gaza is now headed by a woman. This means more than 16,000 women have lost their husbands and are bearing a doubled burden of making critical decisions amid famine and displacement.
The struggle goes beyond securing income, extending into the harsh details of daily life. Long lines of women and children wait for hours under the sun to obtain containers of safe drinking water—a scene that has come to define daily life in displacement camps across Gaza.
As this reality persists, these women find themselves confronting the collapse of social support networks, forcing them to innovate and struggle within an unstable labor market, in an attempt to live “like everyone else” under extremely harsh conditions.
