What being a woman in Gaza means in this genocidal war?

"Mothers erasing themselves to feed their children, surgeries performed without anaesthesia and the total loss of privacy define the female experience in Gaza as the war enters another winter. Women in Gaza are surviving the unsurvivable. They are managing daily food scarcity while caring for their children under conditions of absolute deprivation; although a ceasefire stipulation, Israel continues to block tents and caravans, among other critical winter aid. Women in Gaza continue to navigate repeated displacement, packing and unpacking their families' lives over and over again under heavy bombardment."

"They are caring not only for their own children, but also for the injured, the elderly, and the orphaned. Above all, they carry the invisible but crushing emotional labour of holding families together through grief, terror, uncertainty and unrelenting loss amid unprecedented destruction. As a woman, I carry the burden of reporting the horrors that I, too, am faced with. I have reported, daily, on the Israeli genocide in Gaza, and there has not been a single day without a mother breaking my heart. Not one. Every day, I meet women who are exhausted beyond words, whose bodies starve while their hearts refuse to give up."

"I hold my baby close all night long, fearing the cold will take my child away from me, or the rain will sweep him away. I can't sleep, Suzan told me. She was displaced in the Zeitoun neighbourhood, surviving in a fragile tent for more than two years. We only have three blankets, she continued. We share them. It's OK if I can't warm myself."

Mothers in Gaza face surgeries without anaesthesia, total loss of privacy, and acute deprivation as winter arrives. Blockades prevent delivery of tents, caravans, and critical winter aid, deepening hardship. Women repeatedly displace, packing and unpacking families amid ongoing bombardment. Women care for their own children plus the injured, elderly, and orphaned while managing extreme food scarcity and often depriving themselves to feed their children. Women shoulder crushing emotional labour, holding families together through grief, terror, and relentless loss. Many share scarce blankets, keep children close in freezing nights, and sustain love and resilience as acts of resistance.

Read at www.aljazeera.com