The Gendered Cost of Empire: How Gaza’s Women Bear the Brunt of Colonial Erasure

To understand modern imperialism, one must understand how state violence systematically dismantled the social, economic, and physical fabric of colonized societies. Settler-colonial machinery relies on more than territorial occupation and military encirclement; it operates by targeting the reproductive core of indigenous communities—the caregivers, mothers, organizers, and breadwinners who sustain collective survival across generations.

A stark assessment presented by UN Women highlights this gendered reality in Gaza. Since the escalation of the military campaign in October 2023, nearly 50,000 Palestinian women and girls have been killed or permanently disabled—a figure that represents roughly one out of every 21 women and girls in the enclave. The breakdown of these statistics lays bare the human cost: over 38,000 women and girls killed, and approximately 11,700 left with life-altering, disabling injuries.

This catastrophic toll is not an incidental byproduct of warfare; it reflects the structural logic of colonial erasure, imperial complicity, and Western capitalist hegemony.

Colonial Violence and the Anatomy of Destruction

The assault on Gaza cannot be viewed in isolation from the broader mechanics of Western imperialism. Settler-colonialism fundamentally aims to supplant indigenous populations, disrupt their socio-political continuity, and render self-determination impossible. As reported by The Palestine Chronicle, UN Women’s Chief of Humanitarian Action, Sofia Calltorp, detailed the scale of this devastation during a briefing in Geneva, emphasizing that nearly one million women and girls have been uprooted from their homes, forced into makeshift tents or the unsafe ruins of bombarded neighborhoods.

Even as diplomatic institutions tout temporary ceasefires—such as the agreement reached in late 2025—the structural violence of occupation persists uninterrupted. The Palestine Chronicle highlights that at least 277 women and girls have been killed since the truce went into effect, demonstrating that nominal peace under colonial occupation offers no structural safety for colonized subjects.

From an anti-imperialist lens, the continuous assault on Gaza's civilian architecture—hospitals, sanitation networks, power plants, and agricultural land—constitutes a deliberate campaign of social reproduction denial. By targeting the conditions necessary for basic human life, the colonial apparatus attempts to force total social collapse.

The Political Economy of Displacement and Gendered Labor

Under capitalist imperialism, crisis is rarely neutral; it disproportionately shifts the burden of survival onto working-class and colonized women. In Gaza, the destruction of infrastructure and the loss of working-age men have fundamentally restructured the domestic political economy.

Coverage from The New Arab highlights that the proportion of female-headed households in Gaza has doubled, meaning that one in four households is now managed exclusively by women. These women are tasked with securing food, clean water, and shelter under a suffocating siege, facing acute poverty and widespread psychological distress.

Furthermore, The New Arab emphasizes how Western aid cuts and the deliberate restriction of emergency supplies exacerbate these conditions. Capitalist austerity policies enacted by foreign donors, coupled with military blockades, strip local communities of vital resources. The resulting desperation has led to alarming surges in gender-based violence and forced child marriages, illustrating how economic deprivation intersects with state violence to entrap women in compounding crises.

Western Complicity and the Failure of Liberal Internationalism

The ongoing plight of Palestinian women exposes the hypocrisy of Western liberal discourse. While imperialist powers routinely invoke "women's rights" to justify military interventions and economic sanctions across the Global South, they fund, arm, and shield settler-colonial states engaging in documented human rights violations.

As detailed by Shia Waves, the collapse of humanitarian infrastructure in Gaza has left grassroots organizations unable to respond. Out of 14 women’s organizations surveyed by UN Women across Gaza and the occupied West Bank, 13 reported that they can no longer meet the overwhelming demand for emergency services due to critical funding shortages and active military disruption.

This structural abandonment demonstrates the limits of liberal internationalism. International regulatory bodies issue statements and publish statistics, yet global capital flows, weapons transfers, and diplomatic protections for the occupation continue unimpeded. The international institutions designed by imperial powers prioritize the stabilization of global capital and state hegemony over the enforcement of basic international law.

Indigenous Resistance and the Struggle for Liberation

Discussions around the gendered impact of war must avoid framing Palestinian women solely as passive victims. Across history, anti-colonial and anti-capitalist struggles—from Algeria to Vietnam—have demonstrated that women form the backbone of national liberation movements.

Reporting from The Times of Gaza underscores the fortitude of Palestinian women who continue to manage frontline survival, organizing community care networks, tending to the injured, and maintaining social cohesion amidst widespread physical destruction. Their resilience under siege represents a continuous act of sumud (steadfastness)—a refusal to be erased by imperial power.

Socialists, anti-imperialists, and anti-colonialists must recognize that true solidarity requires more than humanitarian sentiment. It demands an unyielding critique of the global capitalist and imperialist structures that enable settler-colonial expansion. Ending the crisis facing Gaza’s women requires an end to military aid, an end to economic blockades, and the total dismantling of colonial occupation in favor of full Palestinian liberation and self-determination.