A new United Nations report highlights a shocking trend in modern warfare – and Israel’s assault on Gaza is no exception.

The proportion of women killed in wars doubled last year compared with 2022. Women make up four out of every ten conflict zone deaths around the world, according to a report published this week by the United Nations.

UN women

UN Women, the agency behind the report, also found that cases of conflict-related sexual violence increased by 50% in 2023. Yet, currently investment in gender-based violence prevention constitutes less than 1% of all humanitarian expenditure.

The report paints a stark picture. It says: “Amid record levels of armed conflict and violence, progress made over decades is vanishing before our eyes. Generational gains in women’s rights hang in the balance around the world, undercutting the transformative potential of women’s leadership and inclusion in the pursuit of peace.”

“Earlier this year, the UN Security Council released a report estimating that 33,433 civilians including at least 13,337 women were killed in conflict zones around the world in 2023, a 72% increase from the previous year,” reports Common Dreams. The vast bulk of these deaths occurred in Gaza.

In February, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed alarm over allegations of human rights violations against Palestinian women and girls in Gaza. It said in a statement that it had received information that Palestinian women and girls have “reportedly been arbitrarily executed in Gaza, often together with family members, including their children.”

Healthcare

Women and girls in war-affected regions are also increasingly suffering from limited access to healthcare.  Every day, 500 women and girls in conflict-affected countries die from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth. Around 52,000 pregnant women have been caught in the war in Gaza, with an estimated 180 daily deliveries where women go without access to anaesthetics for caesarean sections and without water, sanitation, nutrition or postpartum care. 

Earlier this month, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory found that Israel had pursued a concerted policy of destroying Gaza’s healthcare system as part of a broader assault on the territory, committing war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination, with relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities,

Globally, five hundred women and girls in conflict-affected countries die daily from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth — with data showing that up to 61% of maternal mortality could have been prevented. 

Children too

Meanwhile, TomDispatch reports: “ According to Save the Children, about 468 million children — about one of every six young people on this planet — live in areas affected by armed conflict. Verified attacks on children have tripled since 2010. Last year, global conflicts killed three times as many children as in 2022.”

As well as the physical damage war inflicts on children, the psychological trauma is also devastating, severely impacting on children’s emotional and cognitive development. Again, the long-term effects of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza – 17,000 dead, 19,000 orphaned, a million displaced –  are incalculable.

Conflicts in Sudan – 18,000 killed in the last eighteen months, Syria  – 30,000 killed in the Civil War since 2011, and now Lebanon have also been devastating for children.

“Child casualties in Ukraine jumped nearly 40% in the first half of this year, bringing the total number of children killed or injured in nearly 900 days of war there to about 2,200, according to Save the Children,” reports TomDispatch. An estimated nearly 20,000 children from occupied territories occupied by Russia have also been forcibly removed by the invaders. Some were put up for adoption in Russia itself.

It is emblematic of modern warfare that it kills a far higher proportion of civilians than combatants.  Aerial bombardment, for all the talk about ‘surgical strikes’ and ‘precision’, is one of the biggest culprits. Cluster munitions and land mines add to the toll, helping to normalise the killing of civilians, which opens the door to further war crimes, including the deliberate targeting of non-combatants, including women and children.

Women in peace-making

The latest UN report also makes critical points about the sidelining of women in peace negotiations. Despite commitments to ensure women’s full participation in peace and security matters made over many years, political and military power and decision-making around conflicts continue to be overwhelmingly dominated by men.

Women made up fewer than 10% of negotiators in peace processes in 2023, even though studies show that when women are involved, peace agreements last longer and are better implemented. In Yemen, for example, women-led negotiations resulted in safe access to a water source for civilians. 

Earlier this year, the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security launched a new tool called the Women, Peace and Security Conflict Tracker. The tracker builds on  the principles of the Women, Peace and Security agenda, established in 2000 by the UN Security Council’s Resolution 1325 which called upon member states to respond to conflicts’ disproportionate impacts on women and to empower women to play a greater role in preventing and responding to conflict. UN research has shown that women’s participation increases the probability of a peace agreement lasting at least two years by 20%, and the probability of it lasting 15 years by 35%.

The latest UN report makes a range of recommendations to address the issues it identifies. It remains to be seen to what extent they will be implemented.

Image: Wounded Palestinians wait for treatment at the overcrowded emergency ward of Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City following an Israeli airstrike on October 11, 2023,. Source: Correspondence with Wiki Palestine (Q117834684) Author: WAFA (Q2915969) in contract with a local company (APAimages), licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.