Women in Gaza's sprawling tent camps face daily humiliation due to the lack of privacy. They struggle to maintain modesty with extended family and strangers close by, leading to challenges with dressing, menstruation, and basic sanitation. The constant exposure has a profound impact on their dignity and mental well-being.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza City — For Gaza ’s women, the hardships of life in the territory’s sprawling tent camps are compounded by the daily humiliation of never having privacy.
Alaa Hamami gazes into a fragment of a broken mirror as she poses for a portrait beside her deteriorating cosmetics in her tent at a camp for displaced Palestinians in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, on Dec. 18, 2024.Normally, she would wear the shawl only when performing her daily Muslim prayers. But with so many men around, she keeps it on all the time, even when sleeping — just in case an Israeli strike hits nearby in the night and she has to flee quickly, she said.
“Before we had a roof. Here it does not exist,” said Hamami, whose prayer shawl is torn and smudged with ash from cooking fires. “Here our entire lives have become exposed to the public. There is no privacy for women.”Wafaa Nasrallah shows sanitary pads at her tent in a camp for displaced Palestinians in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, on Saturday, Dec. 28, 2024.
She said some women have not changed clothes for 40 days. That and improvised cloth pads “will certainly create” skin diseases, diseases related to reproductive health and psychological conditions, she said. Israel launched its assault in retaliation for the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on southern Israel, in which militants killed some 1,200 people and abducted around 250 others.With large swaths of Gaza’s cities and towns leveled, women wrestle with reduced lives in their tents.
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