UN Women’s Executive Director Sima Bahous speaks loudly on suffering of Palestinian people

Cairo – 24 November 2023: UN Women’s Executive Director Sima Bahous shed light on Friday on the Palestinian cause and the suffering of the Palestinian people since nearly 45 days since the Israeli aggression on the Strip.

She said in a speech at the UN Security Council: “Allow me to thank you, Ambassador Zhang Jun, for your remarkable efforts during China’s presidency to maintain focus on the situation in Gaza. And thank you to Ambassador Nusseibeh and Ambassador Frazier for calling for this meeting, and to Members of the Security Council, for this opportunity to brief you about the humanitarian situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

“I just returned last night from Egypt and Jordan. There I met with Government, civil society partners, humanitarian workers, and volunteers, all working tirelessly to respond to the suffering of the Gazan people and end the crisis. I commend their efforts to ensure humanitarian aid gets to those in need. I welcome the news that 50 hostages, all women and children, will be released in return for the release of 150 Palestinian women and children, and a much-needed humanitarian pause. I thank the Governments of Egypt, Qatar, and the United States for facilitating this agreement.I hope that this is the beginning of a permanent truce and lasting relief for the people of Gaza and all the hostages held by Hamas.” Bahous said.

She added that during the witnessed six rounds of violence in Gaza in the past 15 years. Yet, the ferocity and destruction that the Gazan people are being forced to endure under our watch has reached an intensity we have never seen before.

“I have been consistent in my briefings to you, in reminding you that women and girls are paying the highest price of conflicts.

Before October 7th, 67 per cent of all civilians killed in the Occupied Palestinian Territory in the past 15 years were men, and less than 14 per cent were women and girls. Since that date, that percentage has reversed. Not only is the number of civilians killed since October 7th twice that of the last 15 years combined, now 67 per cent of the more than 14,000 people killed in Gaza are estimated to be women and children.

That is two mothers killed every hour and seven women every two hours. We mourn them all.” Bahous said.

The UN official noted that the organization “mourn the more than 100 UN colleagues who have died in just a month of this crisis. They served the mandate of our United Nations and the principles we have sworn to uphold, and they paid the ultimate price for it.”

Despite their knowledge of the dangers they faced, they did what they believed in until their final breath, whether in schools, in hospitals or wherever they were needed. We carry their memories with us throughout this crisis and beyond.

“It has been 47 days since the October 7th attack on Israel, where 1,200 people, many of them women and children, were killed. Each day that passes marks another 24 hours of unspeakable fear and uncertainty for the hostages, including the women and girls held by Hamas. I continue to call for their immediate and unconditional release.

It has been 47 days since the more than two million Palestinians in Gaza have spent every moment fearing for their lives, mourning their dead, and living under conditions that would break every single one of us.

Thousands of women in Gaza have lost their homes, with 45 per cent of all housing units destroyed or damaged.

Thousands more are injured, unable to find any medical support from a totally shattered health system.

One-hundred-eighty women are delivering babies every day without water, without painkillers, without anaesthesia for C-sections, without electricity for incubators, and without medical supplies. Yet, they continue caring for their children, the sick, the elderly, mixing baby formula with contaminated water, going without food so that their children can live another day, enduring multiple risks in severely overcrowded shelters. They have been robbed of their livelihoods, of their security, and of their dignity.

Women in Gaza have told us that they pray for peace, but that if peace does not come, they pray for a quick death, in their sleep, with their children in their arms. It should shame us all that any mother, anywhere, has such a prayer.

Before the current escalation, there were 650,000 women and girls in dire need of humanitarian assistance in Gaza. Now that estimate has gone up to 1.1 million, including the nearly 800,000 women internally displaced.

And while the situation of women and girls in Gaza rightly preoccupies us because of its immediacy and the overwhelming imperative to act, we are seeing an escalation in the West Bank where demolitions of public infrastructure, revocation of work permits, increased settler violence, and detentions have significantly impacted the lives and livelihoods of women.

I am alarmed by disturbing reports of gender-based and sexual violence. I reiterate my call from when I last spoke in these Chambers in October, that every act of violence against women and girls, including sexual violence, is unequivocally condemned, and must be fully investigated with the utmost priority.

I am reassured that SRSG [Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict] Patten has activated the UN Action network that she chairs to proactively share UN-sourced and verified information on incidents, patterns, and trends of conflict-related sexual violence to aid all investigations.

I am confident that there will ultimately be a reckoning for all violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in this conflict. The work of the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israelis is crucial.”