<\/p>\n
17 September 2026<\/p>\n
This report presents the perspectives of 230 women living in displacement camps in Gaza City and Khan Younis on their daily lives and the risks of gender-based violence (GBV) they experience in the context of protracted displacement due to the ongoing conflict. It draws on findings from 16 focus group discussions conducted by the Women\u2019s Affairs Center (WAC) between December 2025 and January 2026 with women aged 19\u201363. All participants had experienced repeated displacement, ranging from two to ten times, with a median of seven displacements. The findings presented in this report are grounded in participants\u2019 own accounts and perceptions of their experiences and the conditions in which they are trying to survive.<\/p>\n
Participants described living conditions characterised by severe overcrowding, an almost complete absence of privacy, and limited access to basic necessities, including clean water, food, and functioning latrines. They spoke of families and social networks profoundly affected by death, injury, detention, and repeated displacement, as well as the erosion of community- and family-based protection mechanisms that might otherwise support women and girls. Participants also described how essential services, including health, legal, and psychosocial support had become increasingly difficult to access, were located further from where they were living, or were no longer available. It is within this context, more than two years after the onset of the current conflict and the large-scale displacement and destruction that followed October 2023, that participants described the forms that GBV takes within displacement settings, the circumstances in which they perceive these risks to arise, and the individuals and groups they associate with such violence.<\/p>\n
GBV was not absent from Gaza prior to the current conflict, as documented in previous research (Veronese et al. 2025). However, participants described displacement and the conditions in which they are now living as having altered the nature of GBV risks and, in their perception, their frequency. Women identified a range of actors whom they associated with GBV, including family members, other members of the community, and individuals involved in security and aid delivery. These accounts are important for understanding how women themselves perceive and navigate protection risks in displacement settings. At the same time, this report presents participants\u2019 accounts as reported during the research process; it does not seek to establish the prevalence or relative extent of GBV perpetrated by different actors or parties to the conflict. Such determinations are beyond the scope of a qualitative study of this nature and cannot be inferred from this sample.<\/p>\n
The circumstances in which the discussions took place also shaped what participants were able and willing to disclose. For many women, discussing GBV was difficult in the context of stigma, fear of retaliation, and a perception that experiencing or enduring violence may be an unavoidable part of surviving the current crisis. Facilitators did not probe participants for personal experiences of violence. Where participants used indirect language, euphemisms, or other forms of expression, particularly when referring to sexual violence, researchers have retained and documented this language rather than interpreting or assuming the specific nature of an experience that participants did not explicitly identify.<\/p>\n
These considerations are central to interpreting the findings that follow. The report is intended to amplify women\u2019s perspectives on the protection risks they face in displacement settings and to contribute to a more grounded understanding of how conditions of prolonged displacement may shape GBV risks, access to protection, and access to essential services. The findings should be read alongside the methodological approach and limitations set out in Section 2. Section 3 begins with participants\u2019 own words, providing a direct account of how women describe their experiences and the risks they encounter in their daily lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
17 September 2026 1. Overview This report presents the perspectives of 230 women living in displacement camps in Gaza City and Khan Younis on their daily lives and the risks of gender-based violence (GBV) they experience in the context of protracted displacement due to the ongoing conflict. It draws on findings from 16 focus […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"country":[],"document-category":[1323],"document-source":[2337],"committee-meeting":[],"document-subject":[2005,7017,1745],"entity":[1729],"document-language":[6542],"class_list":["post-320232","document","type-document","status-publish","hentry","document-category-report","document-source-united-nations-population-fund-unfpa","document-subject-gaza-strip","document-subject-gender-based-violence","document-subject-refugees-and-displaced-persons","entity-united-nations-system","document-language-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/320232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/document"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/320232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":320255,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/320232\/revisions\/320255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=320232"},{"taxonomy":"document-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-category?post=320232"},{"taxonomy":"document-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-source?post=320232"},{"taxonomy":"committee-meeting","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/committee-meeting?post=320232"},{"taxonomy":"document-subject","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-subject?post=320232"},{"taxonomy":"entity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entity?post=320232"},{"taxonomy":"document-language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-language?post=320232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}