In Gaza’s tents, widows face war’s harshest realities alone

Gaza City, Gaza Strip – Under the scorching heat inside a displacement tent in northern Gaza, Mona al-Masri tries to plan for each day as it comes.

Mona is a widow, and the mother of four children, ranging in age from nine to two. Her husband, Mohammed, was killed in an Israeli strike in September 2024.

Between fabric walls that provide little protection, Mona carries the responsibilities of a family burdened by displacement brought on by Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, and the accompanying loss of security.

Mona begins each morning trying to secure her family’s basic needs, searching for water, arranging food, and attempting to protect her children from a reality that no longer resembles the life they knew before the war began in 2023. She says that what hurts her most is not only the harshness of their living conditions, but also the feeling that she has been forced to confront every detail of daily life alone.

“There is no normal life inside the tent. Every day begins with the same questions: how will we secure our needs, and how will we get through another day surrounded by this exhaustion?” Mona says. “The war did not only take away our homes; it took away our sense of safety and stability and made even the simplest things require enormous effort.”

Mona is one of thousands of women in the Gaza Strip who have found themselves facing new roles imposed by the war, taking care of their families by themselves.

According to data from the Ministry of Social Development in Gaza, the total number of widows in the Gaza Strip has risen to more than 50,000. The figure includes 28,224 women who became widows as a result of the war, in addition to more than 22,500 widows who were already registered with the ministry before the war.

Aziza al-Kahlout, spokesperson for the Ministry of Social Development in Gaza, says the number is expected to rise further because not all widows have yet been registered.