Corporates around the world have been celebrating International Working Women’s Day with fanfare, sans the ‘Working’ part, highlighting the “resilience of women” to motivate employees and entrepreneurs, and having cliched discourse on gender parity, breaking the glass ceiling and bringing more inclusivity by promoting more women to the top.
The entire Women’s Day narrative of the corporate world is centred around commodification of the day, obliterating its history, so that the sense of empowerment among women can drive sales higher.
Amid this usual, annual cacophony, the biggest story of women’s resilience goes unnoticed in the media hype. The Palestinian women reach yet another milestone by surviving another International Working Women’s Day while remaining steadfast in their overall struggle against Zionist aggression and playing a crucial role in keeping the flames of resistance alight.
“An Israeli missile killed my mother, my sister and my niece, and amputated my legs. I was thrown ten metres away by the force of the explosion. When I woke up, I didn’t recognise my body. I couldn’t scream or cry, as pain spoke louder than words. I can no longer walk, move, or live my life as I once did. My future has become uncertain, without a home, without education, and without treatment. The days feel unbearably long, weighed down by endless thoughts of how the IOF deprive me of leading a normal human life. How did they turn me, in an instant, into a person with a disability, without a mother or a sister? It’s an indescribable feeling! I am still waiting to be allowed to travel for treatment and to get a prosthetic limb that will give me a chance to regain part of what I lost,” an 18-year-old Nour al-Dalou told volunteers of the Palestinian Centre of Human Rights (PCHR).
Thousands of women like Ms al-Dalou face the ordeal bravely and refuse to surrender.
How did they turn me, in an instant, into a person with a disability, without a mother or a sister? It’s an indescribable feeling!
Nour al-Dalou (18)
Up to March 4th, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) has estimated—conservative estimates based on October 2024 countings—that 48,405 people had been killed in Gaza due to Israel’s incessant attacks since October 2023.
Out of these victims, it’s estimated that 7,216 are women.
Despite the fragile ceasefire in Gaza, nothing has changed. Palestinian women in Gaza and the West Bank face a starkly different reality.
Killings continue in Gaza while for the 40th consecutive day, Israeli occupation forces carried out attacks on the West Bank’s refugee camps.
At each stage of this transgression, Palestinian women have been at the forefront of resistance.
Yet when the UN coins the slogan, “For ALL women and girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment.” as its International Women’s Day slogan, it avoids highlighting the plight of the Palestinian woman who is not only fighting for these three but also fighting for her land, her identity.
For over seven decades, they have endured displacement, violence, and systemic oppression under Israeli occupation.
Since October 2023, this struggle has escalated into what Palestinian resistance groups describe as a “genocidal war”, characterised by mass casualties, forced displacement, and a humanitarian collapse exacerbated by Israel’s blockade on aid—even during the ongoing Islamic month of Ramadan, a period of fasting and reflection.
Against this backdrop, the statements of two major Palestinian factions, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and Hamas, on the occasion of International Working Women’s Day, offer a harrowing yet defiant narrative of women’s roles as both victims and agents of resistance.
Across the ideological spectrum, Palestinian resistance has hailed their women for their resilience and sacrifices.
Their words, coupled with grim data from Gaza’s Government Media Office, underscore a crisis met with deafening silence from the self-righteous West that loudly champions women’s rights elsewhere.
But one can’t complain when they see the Berlin Police attacking women rallying in the German capital in support of Palestine on International Working Women’s Day, exhibiting the macabre attitude of the West towards women of Palestine and the women of Germany who support Palestine.
The “genocide” toll: Data as testimony
According to Salama Maarouf, head of Gaza’s Government Media Office, Israeli aggression between October 2023 and January 2025 has inflicted catastrophic losses on Palestinian women. According to the Gaza government’s data, over 12,316 women were killed in the “genocide”, 13,901 widowed, and 17,000 mothers bereaved of their children.
More than 50,000 women gave birth in makeshift shelters during the “genocide” without medical care, while 162,000 contracted infectious diseases due to unsanitary conditions. Over 2,000 women and girls underwent amputations without anaesthesia, leaving them permanently disabled.
These figures, though unverified independently, paint a visceral picture of suffering—one that Islamist Hamas condemns as “a stain on humanity’s conscience”.
The statistics also reveal a gendered dimension of warfare. Women, often primary caregivers, bear the brunt of Israel’s siege tactics, which have blocked food, water, and medicine since October 2023. As Ramadan began in March 2025, Israeli forces further tightened restrictions, halting aid convoys and deepening starvation in northern Gaza.
All these after the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) wished Muslims on Ramadan through a post on X (formerly Twitter).
“Where is the international community?” Maarouf asks a question, which is echoing across Palestinian civil society.
PFLP’s Women’s Day message: Vanguards of national liberation
The PFLP’s International Working Women’s Day statement frames Palestinian women not merely as casualties but as central figures in the anti-colonial struggle. “She remains on the frontlines—as a fighter, prisoner, martyr, wounded, and as a mother of martyrs,” the group declares, celebrating their “steadfastness and resistance against the zionist machine of killing.”
The Marxist-Leninist faction, historically advocating armed struggle, ties women’s liberation to national sovereignty, urging “escalated struggle in all international forums” to prosecute Israeli leaders for war crimes.
The PFLP’s vision is unapologetically revolutionary. It calls for a “global resistance front” to challenge the US-led collective West’s complicity in the “genocide” and uphold Palestinian women’s rights to “freedom, dignity, and justice”.
Crucially, the PFLP rejects concessions, vowing to continue fighting until Palestine is “established from the river to the sea”—a phrase critics equate with erasing Israel but which the group frames as decolonisation.
For the PFLP, International Working Women’s Day is not a celebration but a “day of struggle”, inseparable from the broader fight against occupation.
“The Palestinian woman, who has given birth to heroes and raised fighters, is an inseparable part of our people’s struggle for liberation, return, and independence. Therefore, our struggle will continue until the aggression is defeated, the land and its people are freed, and the state of Palestine is established from the river to the sea, with Al-Quds as its capital—until Palestinian women achieve their full rights in a free, democratic society based on liberty, justice, and equality,” the left-wing force said in its statement on the International Working Women’s Day.
Hamas: Faith, steadfastness, and condemnation of the West
Hamas, Gaza’s governing authority since 2007, strikes a more pragmatic tone in its statement. While similarly honouring women’s sacrifices—particularly those who “nurtured resistance” during the 2023 Al-Aqsa Flood incursion—the Islamist group emphasises international law and moral accountability.
It accuses the US and the collective West of “double standards” for condemning human rights abuses elsewhere while arming Israel.
“Those who claim to advocate for women’s rights bear a historic responsibility to stop these atrocities,” the statement asserts, reflecting Hamas’s bid to frame its resistance within global humanitarian norms.
The group also spotlights the plight of female prisoners, alleging “psychological and physical torture” in Israeli jails, and appeals to Muslim and Arab solidarity.
“Moreover, Palestinian female prisoners in the occupation’s prisons endure the most horrific forms of psychological and physical torture, in blatant violation of all international laws and conventions, exposing the double standards of the US administration and certain western countries in dealing with the issue of our prisoners,” Hamas said.
Yet its rhetoric remains rooted in religious defiance. “Victory is near, by the will of Allah,” the group said.
This blend of political pragmatism and Islamic fervour underscores Hamas’s dual identity as both a militant resistance group and a social movement founded by Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.
West’s silence: Hypocrisy or strategic apathy?
The statements of both factions converge on one point: the complicity of Western powers. As the US and European nations pour billions into military aid for Israel, their muted response to Gaza’s devastation has drawn accusations of hypocrisy. While the EU commemorates International Women’s Day with pledges to “empower” women, it has sanctioned Israeli settlers but not halted arms transfers.
President of the European Committee of the Regions, Kata Tüttő, said in her International Working Women’s Day speech, “When women and girls thrive, communities prosper, leadership strengthens, and society moves forward.”
Chair of the Commission for Social Policy, Education, Employment, Research and Culture (SEDEC) Heike Raab said: “On International Women’s Day…we are setting the course to make gender equality a core principle of all EU policies – from economic development to healthcare and political representation.”
Both are yet to respond to the East Post’s queries on protecting women’s rights in Gaza after arming Israel.
The US, meanwhile, vetoed multiple UN ceasefire resolutions, citing Israel’s “right to self-defence”—a stance Hamas condemns as enabling “genocide”.
This dissonance is not lost on Palestinian women. Their sentiment reflects a broader disillusionment: Western feminism, many argue, excludes Palestinian voices, reducing their resistance to terrorism or ignoring it entirely.
Blockaded aid, starvation as policy
The deliberate obstruction of aid—now intensified during Ramadan—exemplifies this abandonment. With Gaza’s food production decimated and aid trucks barred, the UN reports that 90% of women face acute food insecurity. Israel claims Hamas diverts supplies, but aid agencies counter that stringent inspections and arbitrary denials—of items like anaesthesia and maternity kits—are systemic.
Even the UN considers aid blockade as a war crime. Yet global outrage remains tepid, overshadowed by geopolitical calculations because Tel Aviv doesn’t only have the US’s backing but also the support of all major Arab monarchies.
Resilience in the ruins
“I was nine months pregnant when the IOF raided our house in Khan Yunis and sent a dog equipped with a camera to search it. The dog bit me, causing critical injuries to my thigh and severe bleeding. The dog not only bit me but also dragged me on the ground for over 15 metres as I tried to push it away and begged the soldiers to stop, but they were laughing, as if they were watching an entertaining scene. I was already in immense pain from the pregnancy, and the bleeding only made it worse. At the hospital, I was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia, requiring an urgent C-section. Unfortunately, I lost my foetus due to pre-eclampsia and excessive bleeding. I had been eagerly waiting for the birth of my child and holding him in my arms, but the IOF mercilessly stole that joy from me. To this day, I am still suffering an indescribable psychological pain,” Tahreer al-‘Aryian (34) told the PCHR.
The ordeal has been severe for Zainab Abu al-‘Atah (49), a widow and mother of six children.
“After my husband was killed, responsibility weighed heavily on me. He was the backbone and breadwinner of our family. I have no source of income to support us, nor enough food for my children due to the Israeli siege. With every meal, I prioritise my children over myself, but exhaustion overwhelms me, along with the feeling of helplessness in securing their most basic rights,” Ms al-‘Atah told PCHR volunteers.
Despite these horrors, Palestinian women persist.
“I had been eagerly waiting for the birth of my child and holding him in my arms, but the IOF mercilessly stole that joy from me.”
Tahreer al-‘Aryian (34)
Such acts of defiance embody what the PFLP terms “the flame of resistance”—a refusal to be erased.
Hamas, too, lauds women’s “legendary steadfastness,” framing their survival as a victory.
International Working Women’s Day beyond tokenism
International Working Women’s Day, born from socialist struggles for labour rights, has been co-opted by corporations and states that now overlook Palestine. The PFLP and Hamas, despite ideological differences, agree on this: solidarity requires action, not platitudes. As western feminists don purple ribbons, Palestinian women demand accountability—for the bombs, the blockades, and the silence. Their resistance, forged in unimaginable pain, challenges the world to see beyond geopolitics and recognise their humanity. Until then, as the PFLP vows, “the struggle continues.”