By March 2024, the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) estimated that almost 700,000 women and girls in Gaza did not have access to hygiene products or the fundamental human right of privacy. Israeli authorities further cut off clean water supplies, thus engendering a chain promoting the transmission of diseases through blood. In a wartime landscape where women are anticipating an inevitable week every month, restricting something as simple as sanitary products becomes a weapon. Moreover, there is a humiliation ritual involved as women are rid of any sort of privacy in dealing with their own hygiene within cloistered and overflowing refugee camps or occupied territory, clouded by the veil of cultural taboos concerning female personal hygiene; they become further exposed to violence. Women in Gaza thus become a case for a humanitarian crisis, as well as providing a case study for the weaponizing of health in wartime.
Clean water is of the utmost importance for any self-sufficient civilization, but it means life or death in times of war. The UNFPA attests that poor menstrual hygiene due to a lack of clean water increases the chances of urinary tract infections and bacterial vaginosis. Such diseases, while easily curable in the Global North, are crippling in a country in a state of war; they can have long-lasting effects such as possible future infertility and birth complications. Due to lack of cleanliness, contact with the blood from menstruation can also spread Hepatitis B and candidiasis (thrush). Menstruation, among other female bodily functions, creates a need for water, which is explicit to women. Thus, the obstruction of access to clean water has more than physical consequences: it is an attack on women’s health, as it brings them physical stress, shame, and discomfort. Having their right to privacy already undermined because of wartime circumstances, such ramifications are exacerbated through cultural taboos surrounding the private sphere of women. In such a position, women are often forced to resort to unsafe methods. The impacts of access to clean water thus partly outline how menstruations are part of a humanitarian crisis in times of war.
Indeed, there is an overarching taboo common in the Global South regarding menstruation or any general discourse regarding the female body. Common taboos revolve around the idea that menstrual blood makes women impure, dirty, or even sinful. Such assumptions are augmented by the lack of appropriate sanitary products, which might cause breakthrough bleeding or isolation at home. Some communities deter women from washing or touching their genitalia in fear that they might contaminate the communal water supplies of the population. Education plays a heavy role in eradicating such beliefs; there is a large gap in accessible education in the Global South, notably for women, which entrenches negative convictions towards them. Moreover, wartime destruction of educational facilities and of consistent school attendance widen the gap. Consequently, policy-makers are less inclined to provide on-the-ground resources, including clinics, interventions, and learning, for the sake of female health. Menstrual health for young girls and women remains a responsibility of the government to structure both in schools and in public policy.
Popular discourse has created an analogy referring to Gaza as an open-air prison: in that case, Israel is the warden while Gaza is in solitary confinement. Beyond being a prisoner, confinement includes psychological torture through the withholding of essential resources for the mind and body; clean water is at the top of the list. In July 2024, Oxfam released a report on the weaponizing of water by Israel. Indeed, Israeli military action consistently targeted water and sanitation facilities from the very onset of the conflict, resulting in the damage and destruction of at least five sites at every three-day interval. Water production in Gaza plummeted by 84%, with the destruction including 70% of sewage pumping stations, all wastewater treatment facilities, and the principal water quality laboratories. The city itself faced a dramatic loss in water production capacity, with 88% of its wells and all desalination plants damaged or destroyed. Despite the International Court of Justice’s ruling that the conditions in Gaza are at risk for genocide, Israel has since failed to remedy these inhuman conditions. The trials faced by women in Gaza due to menstruation are in other words, a war crime and expose them to further violence and danger.
Prisons are not solely a space of scarce resources; they are further an environment of increased exposure and sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV). The UNFPA stresses how poor menstrual hygiene and practices are a precursor to SGBV, especially during armed conflict. The cultural sensitivity to menstruation in Global South countries is prone to engender violent reactions from both belligerent actors and Palestinians under occupation. Women are exposed two-fold: both their private sphere, i.e., the routines that are meant to be performed at home, and their genitalia are laid bare, thus amplifying their vulnerability. Wars are already synonymous with SGBV, and natural, necessary female bodily functions become tools of exploitation for the perpetrator. Furthermore, women are unprotected from natural elements when they must either wash themselves or change their menstrual products. The lack of a sterile environment is additionally prone to the transmission of diseases. The relationship between SGBV and menstruation is symbiotic: by attempting to escape cultural perversity, women remove themselves from the public space to attend to their bodily needs, which, in turn, marks them out as targets for SGBV because of their exposure.
Many organizations worldwide are actively sending care packages or dignity kits, such as UNFPA. Each kit contains washable and disposable sanitary pads, underwear, and toiletries, including soap, a reusable cloth, a whistle, and a solar-powered flashlight. By May 2024, around 300 UNFPA dignity kits and 50,000 disposable sanitary products had been distributed. CARE International has additionally been attempting to provide resources to people in Gaza. Since October 2023, organizations have succeeded in bringing 153,000 liters of water and allocating over 3,000 dignity kits into the occupied territory. Moreover, they have provided tools to repair shelters to over 11,000 people and assisted 68,000 people through their mobile clinics.
Other grassroots organizations have also contributed to this movement. Pious projects, in collaboration with the Asad sisters, had raised over $700,000 by October 2024 to distribute care packages in Rafah and UN schools. At a mere $20 per kit, they can include sanitary pads, hair brushes, toothbrushes, wipes and tissues, and other miscellaneous hygienic items. This initiative has been essential in keeping women alive in countries across the world, but, like many other NGO projects, they are dependent on funding and access; Gaza remains an open-air prison, dependent on the warden’s graciousness and outside capital.
The war in Gaza is also a war on women. The weaponizing of clean water by Israel exacerbates the conditions in which women are already prone to SGBV and compromised health because of their menstruations and pre-existing cultural prejudices. Moreover, their shame and humiliation cause mental distress, supplemented by the strain of the war and the continued internal displacement. Almost 700,000 women and girls thus presently have their lives at risk for the mere reason that they are women. Dignity kits such as UNFPA’s are a lifeline; they mitigate long-term consequences by promoting health consciousness and environmental safety. Collaboration between Israel and various NGOs to increase population access to hygiene products could go a long way in improving the conditions of people on the ground. The individual watching the conflict from a distance must also sympathize with these women and help provide them with their right to health and privacy. As long as the war roars, women will be in danger; it is our mission, as part of humanity, to relieve their sufferings.
Edited by Shihun Lee
Amélie Garneau-Daigneault is currently in her second year at McGill University. She is completing her bachelor’s in international development studies, along with minors in gender studies and history. Amélie is especially interested in researching health disparities and the global transmission of diseases. Moreover, she examines the cultural and social consequences of global health. Amélie aspires to attend law school after her B.A. and to apply her learnings to engage in international law.