A safe space for Gaza women: a sanctuary to speak, heal and share amid war
Alaa Daoud, 29, coordinator at Community Development Projects, says the initiative aims to support women facing the hardships of war
Maram Humaid reports in Al Jazeera on 29 July 2026:
Every day at around 9am, after providing for her five children’s needs, Ola Saleh steps out of the tent sheltering her family in al-Amal camp. Some five minutes later, the 39-year-old arrives at another tent in the camp and, for a few hours, she steps away from the demands of motherhood, displacement and grief.
This is a women-only safe space where daily sessions are held as part of a wider programme run by Collective Development Projects, an organisation offering psychological support, group discussions and practical guidance for coping with the pressures of war.
Here, Saleh has the chance to speak with others who understand her feelings without needing to explain them. Surrounded by psychologists and women carrying losses of their own, she finds something she has struggled to feel since Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza took so much from her. “He was killed instantly,” Saleh says with tears running down her face, referring to her 43-year-old husband, Abdul Jalil Saleh, who was killed last August while walking to buy food and household supplies for the family. “I still don’t know whether it was a sniper or a quadcopter.”
In that moment, Ola lost her family’s sole provider and, as she describes him, the person who had been her greatest source of comfort. Now she’s displaced in Deir el-Balah, raising her children aged between five and 17 alone. “Every day is harder than the one before,” she says. “My responsibilities keep growing and his absence becomes heavier.”
An estimated 16,000 women across Gaza have lost husbands since the start of war in October 2023, according to UN Women – roughly one in seven families in Gaza is now headed by a woman.