Maedeh Zaman Fashami, journalist and researcher
In a land where the walls of homes have crumbled, where hospitals have turned into graveyards and schools into heaps of ash and fire, the women of Gaza still stand. They are not merely survivors; they are narrators, narrators of a suffering that the world sees and forgets, but they do not. Today, the women of Gaza are not just victims of war; they are also victims of historical injustice, international silence, and media oblivion. They have grown up under siege since birth, hidden under bombings in childhood, become mothers of martyrs in youth, and were targeted themselves in middle age. The Zionists, with the support of Western governments and the silence of the international community, separate children from their mothers' arms because their goal is to destroy the Resistance; a futile goal, for "The massacre of women, children, and civilians cannot hurt the strong structure of the Resistance or bring it to its knees."
The hard day of Alaa al-Najjar
Amidst the ashes and rubble, on May 23, a painful image emerged in the Qizan al-Najjar area: the Zionist regime precisely targeted a house where ten children, along with their father, had just bid farewell to their mother, Alaa al-Najjar, as she left for a gruelling shift at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. Dr. Alaa al-Najjar, a pediatric specialist at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, is a woman who has simultaneously and tragically experienced the roles of mother and doctor during one of the darkest moments in contemporary Palestinian history. She dedicated her life to saving Palestinian children but ultimately witnessed the burning and dismemberment of her own children in an attack that turned her home to dust.
On Friday morning, she became the grieving mother of nine children who were martyred in their home in Khan Younis due to Zionist bombing. One of her children was a six-month-old infant. At the moment Alaa was in the operating room trying to save another child, the burned bodies of her own children were brought to the hospital where she worked. She had left her ten children at home, not imagining it would be the last goodbye. Just hours later, their home was targeted. Her husband, Dr. Hamdi al-Najjar, was also injured, and only one of the ten children survived with severe injuries. The burned bodies of seven children were pulled from the flames under the rubble. Two others, including the six-month-old infant, remain under the debris.
In a video released by Palestinian Civil Defense, scenes of extracting the burned bodies of Dr. Alaa's children from under the rubble can be seen. In the overcrowded hospital filled with corpses and wounded, she tries to identify her children's faces; but the severity of the burns is such that even a farewell kiss on the forehead is impossible.
Dr. Alaa is not only a doctor but also a symbol of thousands of Gazan women who, despite their professional and maternal roles, are caught in war; women who sometimes have to record the death of their own children and moments later stand beside other children to keep them alive.
On being a woman in Gaza
Dr. Alaa's story is one of thousands. In Gaza, being a woman is a battlefield in itself. Gazan women, as wives or mothers, as doctors, aid workers, journalists, teachers, and ordinary citizens, bear the heavy burden of war. Homes that should be shelters have turned to dust. Arms that should provide comfort are buried under rubble, and yet, women still stand.
Dr. Alaa returned to work just six months after giving birth, despite staff shortages. Her decision was clear: "As long as there is a child to save, I must be there." This is the loud voice of women who, under bombardment, still choose life and resistance.
While 1,400 Palestinian doctors, nurses, and aid workers have lost their lives, narratives like Dr. Alaa's show that the violence of the Zionist regime against women in Gaza is not only physical but also psychological, social, and structural. Palestinian women are not only deprived of their homes and loved ones but also of decision-making rights, security, and even the right to mourn.
The women of Gaza face not only war but also structural pressures from the Zionist regime that deprive them of security, healthcare, education, and social rights. In a siege that has lasted nearly two decades, women, especially during pregnancy, childbirth, child-rearing, and eldercare, face immense challenges:
- Women in Gaza, due to the destruction of healthcare infrastructure and lack of equipment, see their lives and those of their newborns at risk.
- Pregnant women are forced to travel kilometers under bombardment to reach a semi-destroyed hospital.
- Mothers witness their children's seizures due to medication shortages and can only watch.
- Girls miss out on education simply because their schools have turned to ashes.
An undying female resistance
Nevertheless, the woman of Gaza may bend but does not break. She builds a school under a tent for her child, brings medicine to her neighbour, prepares food for the wounded, and sings lullabies to her infant, even when the sound of explosions forms the background. Female resistance in Gaza is not in weaponry but in the continuation of life: In baking bread, watering a small garden, writing a letter to a prisoner, or raising a hand to the sky in prayer. The Gazan woman, through her actions, declares: We exist.
Global silence: An accomplice in the crime against Palestinian women
According to official statistics from the Palestinian Ministry of Health, over 16,500 children and nearly 9,000 women have been martyred in attacks by the Zionist regime. These figures indicate that women and children have been primary, not accidental, targets of the attacks. In many cases, entire families have been wiped out with a single missile; often without warning, without shelter, without a way to escape. These massacres are not carried out solely with weapons but are perpetuated and institutionalized through the silence of international bodies, media sanitization, and lack of legal accountability.
In many parts of the world, even a single case of violence against a woman can lead to hundreds of news headlines, protests, and official reactions. But the Palestinian woman, when she loses her child, her home is destroyed, or her body is buried under rubble, often faces silence.
This global silence is more dangerous than the bombings themselves because it paves the way for normalizing violence against Palestinian women. It is as if the suffering of Gaza's mothers is part of a routine. Violence against women in Gaza is not only in the form of missiles and bullets; homelessness, hunger, lack of treatment, absence of hygiene, lack of physical and psychological security, and complete silence in international media are also hidden but severe forms of this violence. The war not only kills them but also silences them.
From Dr. Alaa al-Najjar to thousands of unknown Gazan women, a consistent pattern of suffering is evident: a woman who gives birth, cares, resists, and simultaneously becomes a victim. Yet, the world is gradually becoming accustomed to these scenes, and this normalization is itself a human catastrophe. Every time we indifferently pass by news of a house bombing in Gaza, every time the image of a crying mother passes before our eyes and is forgotten, we participate in the process of silencing and ignoring the Palestinian woman. The international community, media, women's rights organizations, and even oppressed nations, if they remain silent in the face of this level of systematic violence against Gazan women, are effectively consenting to its continuation. We must not allow the suffering of the Palestinian woman to become normal. We must not let her voice be lost in the noise of politics and statements.
And it is in response to this very silence that Imam Khamenei said Palestine must not be forgotten: "[Efforts are made] to cause people to forget the issues related to Palestine. Muslim nations must not allow this to happen. By using various rumors, with various talk, and by raising new, irrelevant, meaningless issues, they try to divert [people’s] minds from the Palestinian issue. [People’s] minds must not be diverted from Palestine. The crimes being committed by the Zionist regime in Gaza and in Palestine aren’t something to be overlooked. The entire world must stand up firmly against this. The world must stand up firmly against both the Zionist regime itself and also against the supporters of the Zionist regime."
The resistance of the Palestinian woman is not just a symbol; it is a cry for life, for the right to live, for humanity, and we have a duty to hear this cry, to reflect it, and to stand against its silencing. They are human beings, mothers, doctors, teachers, and they must live, not be buried in ruins without even their names being recorded. We are also obliged to defend their right to life by any means we can: Through boycotting and sanctioning Zionist regime products, participating in protests, speaking and writing about the genocide, using our right to vote to effect policy changes in favor of Palestine, by not remaining silent, by not remaining silent, by not remaining silent...
(The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Khamenei.ir.)
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