Gaza violence against women surges as conflict erodes social structures

In the displacement camps of Gaza City and Khan Younis, where families live pressed against strangers in tents and damaged buildings, a woman recounts a pattern that has become routine: when rape is discovered in a school-turned-shelter, weddings and celebrations follow the next day. The victims are married to their attackers. This is not metaphor. It is documented testimony from 230 women collected by the UN Population Fund, part of a growing body of evidence showing that three years of conflict have not only killed tens of thousands and destroyed infrastructure—they have systematically dismantled the social and legal structures that once protected women and girls.

The numbers are stark. Between the first and second quarters of 2026, reported cases of early and forced marriage jumped 123 percent. Girls aged 12 to 17 are being married off at rates that would have been unthinkable before the war between Israel and Hamas began in 2023. One woman interviewed for the UNFPA report described attending the wedding of two girls from her family, aged 14 and 15, whose father and mother had been killed in airstrikes. Their uncles married them off quickly, she explained, to shed the financial burden of caring for orphaned nieces. "By God, they don't understand what marriage or life is," she said of the children.

The mechanism of this violence is economic desperation layered onto cultural shame. A father, facing famine, exchanged his 14-year-old daughter for two bags of flour so his other children could eat. Six women in different camps shared similar stories of daughters traded for food—transactions that predate the war only in the sense that they were once rare enough to be shocking. Now they are documented by multiple aid organizations. The legal framework has weakened too. Gaza's law allows marriage for girls as young as 14 years and seven months with parental consent and judicial approval, and during the war, when Islamic courts that oversee family matters were largely closed, the safeguards that existed even within that system were removed.

One 25-year-old man named Zuhair, when pressed on why he agreed to marry a 16-year-old girl from his extended family after her father—her only guardian—was killed in an airstrike, said simply: "One of the reasons that led me to marry her was that there was no one to take care of her." He acknowledged the cost. "If it were not for the war, she would still be a young girl spoiled by her father. She would be going to school," he said. "She still has a child's mindset, not a mature mindset. She misses school, her family, friends." A couple allowed their 17-year-old son to marry his 16-year-old cousin after both their older son and the girl's father were killed. The teenager is now pregnant and will not return to school. Her father-in-law said her education would be wasted; she needed to care for her child instead.

The health consequences are severe and documented. Girls in their early teens are far more likely to suffer miscarriages and deliver underweight babies than adult women. Nestor Owomuhangi, the UNFPA representative to Palestine, described the cascade: "A child who is at an age when the body is not fully developed to sustain another body, who is hungry, in unhygienic circumstances, who doesn't know how to take care of the infant, who doesn't even know how to take care of herself, the consequences of that pregnancy are always really, really bad." Adolescent pregnancies have surged as a direct result of child marriage.

Sexual violence more broadly has intensified. Reported cases of rape and sexual assault rose 61 percent in absolute numbers between the first and second quarters of 2026, though the actual prevalence is almost certainly higher—sexual violence remains acutely underreported due to stigma and fear of retaliation. UN safety audits have documented that women and girls avoid camp toilets and bathrooms at night because of the risk of assault. Widows and women whose husbands are detained or missing face heightened vulnerability to exploitation. One woman recounted a camp representative offering her a tent in exchange for sexual access. Nearly one in four households in Gaza is now headed by a woman—double the proportion before the war.

The broader collapse is structural. Prior to the conflict, girls in Gaza outperformed boys at every level of education above primary school. Now, with prolonged school closures, many have dropped out entirely. Boys face pressure to find informal work to support their families; girls face heightened safety risks that families often attempt to manage by marrying them off young. The population of more than two million has been almost entirely displaced from their homes. Food markets have reopened, but most cannot afford what is sold. Public services have largely collapsed. Israeli airstrikes have continued despite the ceasefire. "Everything is eroded," Owomuhangi said. "There is no system."

Aid agencies are calling for concrete interventions: higher-quality shelters, equipment to upgrade latrines and sanitation, improved lighting in camps. There are ongoing efforts to expand education and healthcare, and longer-term plans for campaigns against domestic violence and child marriage. But the damage already done is permanent. The lives of thousands of girls have been fundamentally altered. What remains is the hope, expressed by women in the camps themselves, for a future in which they at least feel safe.