AFP, Geneva

Over 38,000 women and girls were killed in the Gaza war by the end of 2025, the UN estimated yesterday, amounting to over half of the 71,000 deaths recorded by the territory’s health ministry.

“Between October 2023 and December 2025, more than 38,000 women and girls were killed in Gaza -- the result of Israeli air bombardment and land military operations,” the UN Women agency’s spokeswoman Sofia Calltorp told a press briefing in Geneva.

“This includes over 22,000 women and 16,000 girls, amounting to an average of at least 47 women and girls killed every day.”

“On top of a staggering death toll, nearly 11,000 women and girls in Gaza have sustained injuries so devastating that they survive only with lifelong disabilities,” said Calltorp.

She said the war had reshaped Palestinian families, with tens of thousands of Gaza households now headed by women, who having lost their husbands, were now having to sustain their families “without income, without support, or access to essential services”.

Nearly a million women and girls have been repeatedly displaced during the conflict, while nearly 790,000 women and girls having experienced crisis-level or catastrophic-level food insecurity.

She said the Middle East war, which erupted with the US-Israeli attack on Iran on February 28, had escalated the difficulties in Gaza, “as border crossing closures and humanitarian access constraints further reduce access to life-saving support”.