TO SUPPORT LONG-TERM, INCLUSIVE RECOVERY FOR WOMEN AND GIRLS IN GAZA FOLLOWING A
CEASEFIRE, PALESTINIAN AND ISRAELI AUTHORITIES, HUMANITARIAN AND DEVELOPMENT AGENCIES,
AND DONORS MUST:
1. Invest in nutrition recovery as part of health system rebuilding. Humanitarian actors and
healthcare systems must work together to integrate maternal and child nutrition programs into
health services and restore community health worker networks.
2. Restore food production and support sustained independent food security within Gaza. Israel must
end long-standing restrictions and controls on food, agricultural, and water and sanitation materials
entering or leaving Gaza’s borders. Humanitarian actors must provide seeds, tools, and direct
support to women and caregivers to restore gardens and small-scale farming.
3. Rebuild caregiving and support infrastructure to address the emotional burden carried by
women and girl caregivers in crisis. Trauma-informed care infrastructure and services should
be prioritized, such as women and girls’ safe spaces, childcare centers, and mobile mental health
clinics, recognizing and responding to the deep psychological impact of conflict and displacement.
4. Ensure women’s active participation and leadership in recovery. Humanitarian coordination
teams should guarantee that refugee women and WLOs are partners, leaders, and decision-makers
in recovery planning and implementation. Donors must increase funding allocations for WLOs to
strengthen localized, inclusive, and sustainable response and recovery.
5. Invest in gender, age, and disability-disaggregated data collection and rapid gender analysis
capacities, to ensure more effective, appropriate, and timely targeted responses for vulnerable
groups in future humanitarian interventions in Gaza.
CONCLUSION
The persistent obstruction of aid, militarization of food distribution, decimation of physical
infrastructure, and denial of safe medical access are predictable in their deadly outcomes. The evidence
presented in this study demonstrates that the crisis in Gaza cannot be reduced to a question of
logistics or operational failure. What is unfolding represents the systematic collapse of legal and moral
obligations to protect civilians, including women and girls. The international community cannot stand
by. Urgent and coordinated action is required to restore safe, predictable, and inclusive humanitarian
access, to prioritize the protection of women and girls in aid and recovery efforts, and to ensure
legal accountability for those who weaponize starvation. Anything less abandons Gaza’s civilians to
engineered starvation and erodes the very foundations of the international order built to prevent such
atrocities.
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