Salam was blessed with great beauty, but she never imagined that her beauty would turn against her during the October 7th, 2023, Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, finding herself in her early thirties walking a fine line between making a living and preserving her dignity.
After her husband was arrested by the Israeli occupation army during the assault, and after her home got destroyed along with all of the family’s belongings, Salam was left without income or shelter. As a result, she was forced to seek refuge in a single room at a relative’s house, where she endured displacement, hunger, and humiliation while caring for her five children and her elderly mother-in-law.
“I went to school and I have a degree, but I never thought of working. My husband always told me: as long as I’m working, you don’t need to. Your role is to take care of the children and the house,” Salam says. But everything changed after his arrest and the loss of their home and income, in addition to the difficulty of finding work opportunities with the ongoing Israeli aggression. Salam suddenly found herself bearing the full weight of responsibility for her family. “Today, there is no income, and my mother-in-law is sick. She’s old and needs diapers. She also has high blood pressure and diabetes, and she needs someone to help her up and down, and we need to get her a wheelchair. But where can I bring these things from?”
Like so many others, the violence of the aggression and the scarcity of resources forced Salam to seek help from organizations and aid providers in an attempt to meet her family’s needs. She recounts her experience: “When I go to aid organization, and explain my situation, I am received by people with weak morals who want to take advantage of me. For example, one would say, ‘Your husband is not here, but I am here instead. I’ll make up for what you’re missing. Whatever you need, I’ll provide. And if you don’t want to deal with me that way, it’s okay,’ as if he is doing it out of love, or that I’ve entered his heart.”
Her voice trembles with rage and grief, and her throat tightens as she continues: “I didn’t come here to fall in love, or to marry, or to offer myself to anyone. My husband is enough for me, and I am enough in my husband’s eye, but war has forced us into this situation. Why should I have to be exploited just to receive aid? If you don’t give in to these advances, they say: no assistance for you. Honestly, 90% — maybe even 95% — of this happens, in both the southern areas and Gaza city, and it’s overwhelming. I don’t understand why they are taking advantage of women in this way.
With the Israeli occupation destroying all institutional and legal structures, women and their families in the Gaza Strip are increasingly in need of assistance. Due to the destruction of homes, displacement from one place to another, and the loss of breadwinners through murder, imprisonment, divorce, separation, or abandonment, or marital suspension, as well as the loss of their own source of income — sexual exploitation by some aid providers has only increased.
Salam explains: “I have faced many situations. At first, they talk. The second time, they get closer — touching, holding your hand, flirting: your eyes, your features, ‘are you married?’ then inappropriate words, comments, and other things. If you want to help me, then do, this aid is the right of the people. But why do it this way? By grabbing me where it hurts most? No, I don’t want it — I’d rather starve to death than be subjected to this.”
As if losing her husband to arrest, her home, her income, and her family’s independence were not enough, on top of that, Salam and other women were subjected to the added humiliation of sexual exploitation in exchange for aid. All of this led to increased psychological and social pressure, and even to a change in personality and ability to deal with children and people.
“To be honest, I am tired and stressed from everything,” Salam admits. “My children have become weak in character, and I take out the pressure I am under on them. For example, if my daughter drops something, I find myself hitting her. I know it’s wrong, but it’s not in my hands.”
Salam also finds herself torn between treating her eldest son as a substitute for her husband in playing the role of the “man of the house,” and her realization that he is still a child. She says: “Maybe because sometimes I want my son to take his father’s place because he is the eldest, so if he makes a small mistake, I hit him hard — as if I want to kill him, and then I sit by myself and cry. I cannot control it. I think to myself ‘why did I do that to him?’ Maybe it’s the pressure around me, actually in the reality I live in. He’s also not a young child anymore, he’s 12 years old, he has to take on some of the responsibility.”
As the Israeli aggression drags on, life becomes even more suffocating in the cramped room Salam shares with her family specially given her inability to find any suitable work amid all the destruction, displacement, and lack of resources. “After so many humiliating situations, I feel like I’m walking down the street naked. I want a job. God, I can’t take it anymore. There’s nothing left to sell, we can’t endure this situation anymore. Seven people with no income at all,” Salam says, while also expressing her concern that they will lose their current shelter in the only room available, as relatives hint they may soon need it back: “It’s hard to go back to living in a tent. I have tried it before. We were displaced and lived in a tent for a year and a half in the south. Even if you’re squeezed in a room, having walls protecting you is still a million times better than living in a tent.”
When asked about the difficulties of living in a tent, Salam’s voice turns heavy again with fear from sexual exploitation or harassment in the absence of protection, privacy, and safety, be it due to the occupation’s missiles or from the stares and touches of men. She says: “There is no security in the tent. Most of the camp administrators are insensitive and have no morals. You fear thieves, and you fear men, especially that you don’t have a man around (husband, father, brother or an adult son).”
She further explains before the end of our conversation: “Someone could be watching and stalking you, and so they could take advantage of your situation. They might come to you under some pretext or another. There are no adult males around, so they just come and open the tent door when you’re alone, for example, or when you’re not dressed. To avoid that, I have to stay dressed all day, wearing my prayer clothes. They try to get closer. What should I do — scream, spit in his face, draw attention to myself? I don’t know how people are like that. I don’t know where this monster was hiding inside of them. The situation is tragic and really frightening.”
Salam’s story reveals that the Israeli aggression affects not only buildings and lives lost, but also human dignity and personal security. With the collapse of legal and institutional structures, the basic right to aid has turned into an opportunity for exploitation. Rebuilding Gaza is not only about infrastructure, but about restoring a society that protects women and ensures aid is delivered with dignity. Any plan that ignores this is bound to fail, which is why women like Salam must be essential partners in relief and reconstruction efforts.
Disclaimer: The names used in the previous testimony are aliases.
“This document has been produced with the support of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung. The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and therefore do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung.”
