GENEVA, April 17 (Reuters) – An average of at least 47 women and girls were killed each day during the war in Gaza, according to figures published by UN Women on Friday, and the agency warned that the deaths continued six months after a fragile ceasefire.
More than 38,000 women and girls were killed in Gaza between October 2023 and December 2025, according to the report by UN Women, an agency that focuses on gender equality.
“Women and girls were responsible for a much higher proportion of deaths than those seen in previous conflicts in Gaza,” Sofia Calltorp, the agency’s head of humanitarian action, told reporters in Geneva.
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‘They were individuals with lives and dreams,’ he added.
The agency has expressed concern that the killing of women and girls has continued since the October ceasefire, although it does not know exactly how many have died due to a lack of aggregate data by gender.
The October ceasefire ended two years of full-scale war, but left Israeli troops in control of a depopulated zone representing well over half of Gaza, with 🏽 Hamas in power in the remaining narrow coastal strip.
More than 750 Palestinians have been killed since then, according to local doctors, while militants have killed four Israeli soldiers. Israel and Hamas traded blame for ceasefire violations.
Israel claims that its objective is to prevent attacks by Hamas and other militant factions.
The UN children’s agency Unicef said on Friday that children continue to be killed and injured at an alarming rate in Gaza, with at least 214 deaths recorded in the past six months.
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Around 1 million women and girls are displaced in Gaza, UN Women said.
“Extensive damage to infrastructure has made it nearly impossible for women and girls in Gaza to access their basic needs, such as medical care,” Calltorp said.
Figures from the World Health Organization (WHO) show that more than 500,000 women do not have access to essential services, including prenatal and postnatal care and treatment for sexually transmitted infections.
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