Gaza women, girls face 'compounded harms' amid ongoing genocide — Amnesty
Israel's genocide has devastated Gaza's healthcare system, leaving pregnant women, mothers and cancer patients without adequate treatment or safe living conditions, Amnesty International says.
Palestinian women and girls in Gaza are facing layered and life-threatening harm as Israel's genocide continues to devastate healthcare, shelter, food access and basic dignity, Amnesty International has said.
In a statement, the rights group said the impact of the past 29 months of genocidal war has pushed women in Gaza to the brink through repeated displacement, the collapse of reproductive and maternal healthcare, interruptions to treatment for chronic illnesses, including cancer, and worsening exposure to hunger, disease and unsafe living conditions.
"Women in Gaza are being denied the conditions needed to live and to give life safely," Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard said.
The organisation said the harms are being intensified by Israeli restrictions on items it described as indispensable to civilian survival, including food, medicines, medical equipment, shelter materials, water purification tools and machinery needed to clear rubble, unexploded ordnance and waste.
Amnesty said women have been forced to give birth without adequate medical care and to recover from pregnancy while displaced in overcrowded and unsanitary shelters, often while caring for others and without privacy or protection.
The group cited a March 2025 report by the Independent Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including occupied East Jerusalem, which concluded that Israeli authorities had systematically and deliberately destroyed Gaza's reproductive healthcare system.
According to Amnesty, the commission said these actions amounted to acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention.
Maternal care and cancer treatment collapse
Amnesty said medical workers reported a sharp rise in maternal and neonatal health complications over the course of the genocide, including premature births, low birth weight, malnutrition, respiratory problems, anxiety and post-partum depression.
According to WHO and the health cluster, nearly 60 percent of health service points in Gaza are non-functional.
Amnesty said many essential medicines remain out of stock, including drugs needed for labour, post-partum haemorrhage, anaesthesia, infections and respiratory conditions.
Doctors told the group that many women arriving to give birth suffer from anaemia, malnutrition and infections linked to polluted water and unsanitary conditions.
Amnesty cited UNFPA figures saying units across Gaza are operating at 150 to 170 percent capacity, with up to three newborns sharing one incubator.
The report also highlighted the impact on women with cancer and other serious illnesses.
Amnesty said female cancer patients described repeated treatment delays caused by shortages of chemotherapy drugs, the destruction of healthcare facilities and the obstruction of medical evacuations.
The group said no hospital in Gaza currently provides radiation therapy and that diagnostic equipment, including MRI machines, is unavailable.