Gaza’s Women Carry Families Through Loss, Hunger and Displacement

Losing a husband or living without news of his fate has left many women trying to support children who are also grieving, frightened and repeatedly uprooted.

Women are now heading nearly one in four households in Gaza, carrying responsibility for an estimated 86,290 families amid bereavement, hunger, displacement and continued insecurity, according to a new UN Women report. Before October 2023, women led around one in nine households, showing how widespread deaths, disappearances, detention and life-changing injuries have reshaped family life across the territory.

The report, Left to Carry Households Alone: War and the Rise of Women-Headed Households in Gaza, draws on the experiences of widows and women whose husbands are missing, detained, severely injured, forcibly disappeared or whose fate remains unknown. Their accounts reveal lives shaped by grief and uncertainty, while the daily work of finding food, water, shelter, medicine and protection has fallen almost entirely on their shoulders.

Grief Comes With the Pressure to Keep a Family Alive

Losing a husband or living without news of his fate has left many women trying to support children who are also grieving, frightened and repeatedly uprooted. There is little space to process personal loss when each day brings urgent decisions about which necessities can be purchased, where the family can sleep safely and how children can be protected from violence, illness and hunger.

Women heading households are expected to manage these responsibilities in places where humanitarian supplies remain scarce, essential services have broken down and bombardment continues despite the ceasefire agreement. Restrictions on humanitarian access and persistent insecurity make collecting aid dangerous, while shortages force families to stretch small amounts of food, drinking water and hygiene supplies across several people.

Women-Led Families Face Deeper Shelter and Financial Hardship

UN Women's findings show that households headed by women are more likely to lack shelter, food and financial resources than those headed by men. Nearly seven in ten women-headed households do not have adequate shelter, compared with 55 per cent of male-headed households, leaving mothers and children exposed to harsh weather, disease, overcrowding and further displacement.

Three-quarters of women-led households reported damage to their homes, compared with around two-thirds of households headed by men. Women and their families have been forced to flee an average of eight times since October 2023, one more displacement than the average recorded among male-headed households, while two-thirds urgently need cash assistance to cover basic survival expenses.

The figures may not capture every woman performing the role of household head without being officially recognized as one. Many are making all major family decisions because their husbands are absent, injured or unable to provide, yet they can remain overlooked by assistance systems that rely on formal documents or older definitions of household leadership.

Women and Girls Remain in Danger Despite the Ceasefire

UN Women reported that 246 Palestinian women and girls were killed by Israeli air bombardment and military ground operations between the start of the ceasefire in October 2025 and 28 July 2026. The victims included 137 women and 109 girls, amounting to an average of six women and girls killed every week during that period.

Their stories include 18-year-old Raghad Ashour, who was killed while travelling to an 11th-grade examination in Gaza City, and 31-year-old Dina Almadhoun, who died in another strike in the city. A six-year-old girl was killed during a helicopter strike on a displacement encampment in the Mawasi area of Khan Younis, while another girl was shot in front of classmates at a tent school in Beit Lahiya.

UN Women is calling for full implementation of the ceasefire, respect for international law, accountability for violations and humanitarian access that reaches people at the scale required. The agency says women and girls must be central to relief, recovery, peacebuilding and reconstruction, with their voices included in decisions shaping Gaza's future. Working alongside women-led and women's rights organizations inside Gaza, UN Women continues to support the delivery of life-saving assistance to families facing conditions that remain profoundly unsafe.