Families During the Israel-Hamas War: Assessing Family Rights Violations in Gaza
Posted under: Hannah Peterson, Webster University – Saint Louis, Missouri
Families During the Israel-Hamas War: Assessing Family Rights Violations in Gaza
Human rights frameworks identify the family as a vital and fundamental unit of society, yet actions by the Israeli government and its Israel Defense Force in Gaza violate numerous family rights and involve acts of ethnic cleansing and genocide. This paper explores family rights issues facing Palestinians in Gaza since 2023, including family separation and displacement, maternal and reproductive healthcare, the loss of children and parents, familicide, and domicide. This war disproportionately affects Palestinian women and children.
The Israel-Hamas war began on 7 October 2023, when armed fighters associated with Hamas committed acts of terrorism targeting Israeli civilians, killing 1,195 people (815 of whom were civilians) (Human Rights Watch, 2024b). By May 2025, at least 52,535 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli attacks, 70% of them women and children (United Nations Human Rights, 2025b). More than 50,000 Palestinian children had either been killed or injured (UNICEF, 2025), with at least 18,000 children killed (Defense for Children International Palestine, 2025). These numbers only account for the people confirmed dead, with thousands more presumed dead. An estimated 113,274 other people were injured (69% women and children) and more than 11,200 people remain missing (70% of them women and children) in May 2025 (Palestinian Information Center, 2025).
Human rights monitors argue that the Israeli government and its Israel Defense Force (IDF) have perpetrated acts of ethnic cleansing and genocide[1] in Gaza (see Amnesty International, 2024b). These include prohibited acts under the United Nations Genocide Convention such as killing and causing deliberate harm meant to bring about the physical destruction of an identity group (Amnesty International, 2024a). For example, Palestinian civilians have intentionally been deprived of water with the obstruction or destruction of water and sanitation infrastructure (Human Rights Watch, 2024a). Israeli forces have used starvation as a weapon of war by denying vital food aid (Human Rights Watch, 2023). Jens Lærke, spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), said in April 2025 that the events in Gaza represent “a callous disregard for human life and dignity,” adding that “the acts of war that we see bear the hallmarks of atrocity crimes” (quoted in United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – Occupied Palestinian Territory, 2025). The United Nations claims that the violence against civilians in Gaza is both systemic and institutionalized (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – Occupied Palestinian Territory, 2024). This includes the cutting off of food, fuel, and essential medicines (Solomon & Ahmad, 2025) and the targeted killing of aid workers (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – Occupied Palestinian Territory, 2025) – all in a place where half the population of 2.3 million are children (Hussein & Haddad, 2025).
The ongoing conflict in Gaza has violated Palestinian family rights since 2023, including those related to family separation and displacement, maternal and reproductive health, and the loss of children and parents. Some Palestinians face “familicide,” which is the killing of near-to-entire families by armed forces, and “domicide,” which is the systematic and mass destruction of homes. Global human rights frameworks such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Banjul Charter), and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Declaration of Human Rights identify the family as a vital unit of society enshrined with its own rights, and these frameworks provide a basis for family protection that underpins binding international human rights law.
This paper highlights the pervasive family rights violations that Palestinians have encountered during the Israel-Hamas War. First, a brief historical background of Israel-Palestine leads to the recent Israel-Hamas War. Second, relevant human rights frameworks and treaties are connected to family rights violations. These violations include family separation and displacement, maternal and reproductive healthcare, the loss of children and parents, familicide, and domicide. Lastly, recommendations for moving forward include not only the end to the war, but positive steps toward protecting Palestinian families and rebuilding their conceptions of home.
Family Rights Violations in Gaza
Global human rights frameworks recognize the importance of protecting families. Although these frameworks are not legally binding, they provide the basis for international law. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which Israel adopted in 1948, distinguishes “family” as the fundamental unit of society and stipulates it “is entitled to protection by society and the State” (United Nations, 1948, Article 16). The value placed on the family extends to non-Western frameworks such as the African Charter on Humans and Peoples’ Rights, more commonly known as the Banjul Charter, which says the State has an obligation to aid families because they are an integral part of society (African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, 1981, Article 17). The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Declaration of Human Rights recognizes that privacy, family, and home should be free from interference (Association of Southeast Asian Nations, 2012, General Principles, Subsection 2). An array of international human rights frameworks recognize the value of the family and state obligations for protecting it.
Stemming from those frameworks are legally binding international treaties, many of which Israel has ratified and since violated. Those include the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (ratified 3 October 1991), International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ratified Oct. 3, 1991), Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (ratified 3 October 1991), International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ratified 3 October 1991), Convention on the Rights of the Child (ratified 3 October 1991), and the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict (ratified 18 July 2005) (see United Nations Treaty Collection, n.d.). The following section highlights how these treaties relate to family rights violations during the Israel-Hamas War, especially in relation to family separation and displacement, maternal and reproductive healthcare, the loss of children, familicide, and domicide.
Family Separation & Displacement
Family separation and displacement in Gaza have occurred on a massive scale, displacing almost the entire population of Gaza. Thousands of children have been separated from their families, either through displacement or through death. About 1.9 million people had been displaced from Gaza by April 2025 (90% of the population), with almost all the population under evacuation orders at some time since the October 7 attacks (Associated Press, 2025). Previous conflicts had already led to the mass displacement of Palestinians, but this much internal displacement in a short period of time has never been seen before by Gazans. Thousands have been displaced to southern Gaza as northern Gaza became unlivable, but many are unable to travel – including those who are sick or have a disability – and tens of thousands of Gazans are estimated to remain in northern Gaza (Levitt & Walker, 2023).
Within the first year of the war, there were an estimated 17,000 children either unaccompanied or separated from their families. An “unaccompanied child” has been separated from both parents, relatives, or any adult who may be legally responsible for the child (UNICEF, 2024). In Gaza, unaccompanied children have been left to survive on their own, likely facing multiple displacements. Aid organizations such as UNICEF work to prevent family separation and aid unaccompanied children, cut they face significant challenges including security constraints, continuous population movements, and lack of access that has made identifying, registering, and reunifying separated children very difficult (UNICEF, 2024). Since the start of the war, more than 39,000 children in Gaza have lost one or both parents; global organizations are calling this “the largest orphan crisis in modern history” (Palestinian Information Center, 2025; Middle East Monitor, 2025).
Many separated children are too young to give identification to officials, which only makes it more difficult for reunification, and individuals report that they haven’t seen their family members in over a year (Knell, 2025). Thousands of people are unaccounted for, with many presumed dead. Only about 2,100 out of 8,300 cases have led to answers, and very few have resulted in family reunification. Separated families have lost the ability to communicate with each other on numerous times where Israeli forces cut internet and cellphone service, sometimes for months at a time (Yee & Shbair, 2024). Separated families report being unable to reach loved ones due to being restricted by Israeli forces to move from Northern Gaza to the South, leaving thousands stranded where fighting has been extreme, all without a way to leave.
Exacerbating the situation are numerous attacks on refugee camps for displaced people within Gaza, like the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza. The IDF claims camps were attacked because of the presence of Hamas militants and a senior Hamas commander – a claim that Hamas has denied (Al Jazeera, 2023). With thousands of people residing in the Jabalia camp, it is unclear how many civilians have died because of Israeli airstrikes. At the time of initial bombing, IDF spokesperson Jonathan Conricus told BBC News that the IDF was reviewing reports of “collateral damage” and “non-combatant casualties” (quoted in Adams, 2023). After attacks on the Jabalia camp, eyewitness Mohammad Ibrahim told CNN: “There were seven to eight huge holes in the ground, full of killed people, body parts all over the place. It felt like the end of the world” (quoted in Khadder & Salman, 2023). Another attack on the Jabalia refugee camp in April 2025 resulted in the deaths of at least six more people after an Israeli air strike hit a UN-run school (The New Arab Staff & Agencies, 2025). Attacks on tent camps have led to countless deaths of Palestinians in zones established to protect them.
Maternal and Reproductive Healthcare
Access to maternal and reproductive healthcare has been significantly reduced in Gaza, despite protections under international law. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) says that States must “eliminate discrimination against women in the field of health care in order to ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women, access to health care services, including those related to family planning” (United Nations, 1979, Article 12).[2] Challenges to maternal and reproductive health care also connect to the UN Genocide Convention, which prohibits “measures intended to prevent births within the group” (United Nations, 1951). An estimated 500,000 women in Palestine lost access to prenatal and postnatal care and family planning during the first year of the war, which resulted in the stark increase in miscarriages, obstetric complications, and at-risk births (United Nations Population Fund, 2024). The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) (2024) also reports that an estimated 155,000 pregnant women were forced to endure incredible circumstances, such as giving birth “under fire, in tents, while fleeing bombs, and often without assistance, medication or even clean water.” Severe malnutrition and lack of maternity care make it extremely difficult for women to keep themselves and their children alive, especially newborns. Extreme food insecurity is being experienced by an estimated 557,000 women, according to UN Women (Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, 2025).
There are acute shortages in medical resources, like medicines and blood products, which threaten life-saving obstetric care for pregnant women and other health needs. There are an estimated 183 women per day expected to give birth in Gaza, with 15% expected to need additional medical assistance that is already dangerously low. As a result, health care providers in Gaza report that maternal procedures, like cesarean sections (C-sections), have been done without electricity or anesthesia (Elnakib et al., 2024). There is a critical shortage of “medicines used to induce or augment labour; blood plasma to treat women who are hemorrhaging, and medicine to treat pre-eclampsia- all vital to preventing maternal deaths and complications” (United Nations Population Fund, 2025b). Many supplies vital to the health of mothers and newborns rest at the border, such as ultrasounds, incubators, midwifery kits that could aid 15,000 women (United Nations Population Fund, 2025b). Pregnant women must nourish their bodies to healthily grow their child(ren), yet during the first year of war more than 17,000 women were categorized to be severely starved (United Nations Population Fund, 2025b).
The healthcare system in Gaza is so overwhelmed that many hospitals do not offer maternity care, and it is extremely difficult for mothers to receive postpartum checkups (Medecins Sans Frontieres, 2024). Other shortages include sanitary products; many menstruating women and girls must use tent scraps instead, and others take norethisterone tablets, which are meant for excessive menstrual bleeding, endometriosis, and other disorders. Women and girls are resorting to using norethisterone tablets and other forms of birth control because despite the blockade; they have been easier to attain than menstrual products, such as sanitary napkins and tampons (Alsaafin & Amer, 2023). The severe lack of privacy and overcrowded camps only make it more difficult for menstruating women and girls to receive care. At least 700,000 menstruating women and girls are experiencing a “silent menstrual hygiene emergency” (United Nations Human Rights, 2025d).
Attempts to even reach a clinic or hospital for childbirth can be life-threatening in Gaza. In a report by the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights (2025), retired midwife Rajha Al-Moghrabi spoke of her experience aiding internally displaced people in a tent in Gaza where women gave birth. Al-Moghrabi recounted how she and fellow aid workers had no access to painkillers or medication, and they had to use flashlights on their mobile phones as the source of light because there was no electricity. She said that she could not provide care when complications arose because there was no other choice. As women were giving birth in the makeshift clinic, many were emotionally distressed due to their husband or close relatives passing away. Most of the women spoke of experiencing extreme hunger, as well as embarrassment due to the lack of privacy in the tent (Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, 2025). In the same report, Director of Al-Awda Hospital Dr. Mohammad Saleha claimed the IDF intentionally targeted pregnant women traveling to the hospital by shooting at them and their companions. Saleha recounted a pregnant woman in labor and her brother-in-law arriving at the hospital, terrified and crying, after the IDF shot at them and hit the woman’s mother-in-law. They were interrogated by the IDF and ordered to leave the hospital while she was still admitted (Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, 2025). Deliberately attempting to prevent births in a group is prohibited under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (United Nations, 1951).
Loss of Children
Data shows that Palestinian children are targeted by Israeli forces, despite special protections under international law. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Child says that “States Parties recognize that every child has the inherent right to life [and] States Parties shall ensure to the maximum extent possible the survival and development of the child” (United Nations, 1989, Article 6). Yet during the Israel-Hamas War, Israeli forces kill a child every 45 minutes (Hussein & Haddad, 2025). More than 18,000 deaths out of 52,535 were children, meaning that nearly 35% of Palestinians killed were children. At least 50,000 children had either been killed or injured by May 2025, including 274 infants killed by IDF attacks, 876 children who didn’t make it to their first birthday, 17 children who died in displacement camps from freezing temperatures, and 52 children who starved to death or died from acute malnutrition (Palestinian Information Center, 2025). Thousands are unidentified, and many more children are presumed dead under the rubble.
The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict condemns “the targeting of children in situations of armed conflict…including places that generally have a significant presence of children, such as schools and hospitals” (United Nations Human Rights, 2000). Since December 2023, at least 1.4 million Palestinians have been displaced to churches, mosques, schools, and medical centers – all places prohibited from being attacked under international law (Levitt & Walker, 2023). As of March 2024, the IDF has either directly hit or damaged 86.2% of schools in Gaza, and 188 of the 320 schools used for displacement shelters have been either directly hit or damaged. There have been over 100 attacks on hospitals that have caused significant casualties, including the deaths of civilians and healthcare workers, like doctors and nurses. The attacks have also caused the near-complete destruction of civilian infrastructure, which will be assessed later in the section on domicide (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – Occupied Palestinian Territory, 2024). After an attack on a church where people were seeking refuge, a father whose three children were killed said: “They bombed my angels without warning. They killed our children, the children of cousins, relatives” (quoted in Hussein & Haddad, 2025). Attacks on hospitals are considered grave breaches under the Geneva Convention (International Committee of the Red Cross, 2021), yet UN reports show that children bear the brunt of attacks against hospitals, both directly and indirectly (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – Occupied Palestinian Territory, 2024). Some of the women and children killed at hospitals are reported to have been holding white pieces of cloth, which is a sign of surrender (United Nations Human Rights, 2024c).
Children’s rights to develop, live, and flourish are threatened daily. Between August and November 2024, approximately 19,000 children had to be hospitalized for acute malnutrition, according to UN deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed (quoted in Lederer, 2025). A UN report found that the Israeli government has “deliberately inflicted conditions of life resulting in the destruction of generations of Palestinian children and, potentially, the Palestinian people as a group” (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – Occupied Palestinian Territory, 2024). If you were in a room with 100 Palestinian children, “two have been killed, two are missing and presumed dead, three have been wounded, many critically, five have been orphaned or separated from their parents, and five require treatment for acute malnutrition” (Hussein & Haddad, 2025). James Kariuki, Britain’s Deputy Ambassador to the UN, told the UN Security Council in January 2025 that “Gaza has become the deadliest place in the world to be a child. The children of Gaza did not choose this war, yet they have paid the ultimate price” (quoted in Lederer, 2025).
Israeli and U.S. officials consistently claimed that Hamas is the group inflicting these conditions of life upon Gazan children. Danny Danon, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, claims that it is not Israel that is causing violence and despair to Palestinian children, but rather it is Hamas (Lederer, 2025). Yet countless cases provide evidence to support a claim made by Ayed Abu Eqtaish, an official with the Defense for Children International Palestine: “Israeli forces have signed a death warrant for Palestinian children in Gaza as they carry out nonstop attacks” and continue the blockade of all aid (quoted in Defense for Children International Palestine, 2025). Examples include surprise attacks on 18 March 2025 that led to the deaths of 400 children (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – Occupied Palestinian Territory, 2025) – one of the largest one-day death tolls in Gaza’s history (Defense for Children International Palestine, 2025). Two of the children killed were Omar al-Jamassi (aged 15) and his sister, Layan (aged 16). Layan was to begin the new school year hours after she was killed. Omar and Layan’s mother and siblings also died in the attack (Uddin, 2025). In another case, a family of seven was trying to flee the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood that was being bombed when their car was targeted by an Israeli tank. Five-year-old girl Hind Rajab survived the initial attack and managed to call the Palestine Red Crescent Society, yet she was on the phone with emergency services for at least three hours while Israeli forces prevented medical services from reaching her. The bodies of her entire family and two medical personnel sent to rescue her were found twelve days later (Hussein & Haddad, 2025). The UN investigated this case and found that the shelling of the ambulance, the killing of the medical personnel, and the deaths of the family constitute war crimes (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – Occupied Palestinian Territory, 2024).
It is estimated by UNICEF that every child left in Gaza needs mental health and psychosocial support, with that being roughly one million children (Uddin, 2025). A UN report says that both adult and child detainees in Israeli military camps have been subjected to abuse, violence, torture, rape, and other forms of sexual violence, including attacks to detainees’ sexual and reproductive organs and being forced to perform “humiliating and strenuous acts” while being stripped as punishment – all of which constitute war crimes (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – Occupied Palestinian Territory, 2024). (There is also a report that the IDF forcibly transferred at least one female infant into Israel, which is also a war crime (United Nations Human Rights, 2025c). The forcible transfer of children to another group is prohibited under UN Genocide Convention (United Nations, 1951). Another UN report describes how children are “severely traumatized, unaccompanied, with limited ability to locate or communicate with their families” after leaving Israeli detainment (United Nations Human Rights, 2024). Given the treatment and targeted deaths of Palestinian children, Ammar Ammar of UNICEF has said that “Gaza is a graveyard for children” (Uddin, 2025).
Familicide
Israeli forces have targeted and killed near-to-entire Palestinian families, constituting systemic familicide. Familicide refers to the killing of one or more family members by another family member (Tavone et al., 2023). In the context of this paper and specifically in Gaza, “under the conditions of genocide, colonialism, settler-colonialism, and violent conflict more generally familicide refers to the often-deliberate killing, separation, punishment, and disablement of families by military and paramilitary forces” (Jones et al., 2025). Familicide in Gaza is regarded as an explicit facet to genocide. Israeli forces have obliterated Palestinian families, some of which have been destroyed completely. As of October 2024, the largest number of people killed in single families within the first year of war are: Al-Najjar (393), Al-Masry (226), Al-Astal (225), Ashour (166), Shaheen (164), Hamdan (151), Al-Madhoon (146), Ahmed (145), Obeid (144), Hijazi (141) (Hussein et al., 2024).
Data from the first year of war show the scope of familicide in Gaza. Reports show that 902 entire families were eliminated, 1,364 families were reduced to one surviving member, and 3,472 families were reduced to two surviving members (Hussein et. al., 2024). Hours after the October 7 attacks, Israeli forces bombed a three-story residential building that killed 15 members of the al-Dos family, including seven children. The bombing killed two parents, Adel and Ilham al-Dos, and all five of their children. The youngest victim was Adam, 18 months old (Amnesty International, 2023). Mohammad al-Dos told Amnesty International (2023): “Two bombs fell suddenly on top of the building and destroyed it. My wife and I were lucky to survive because we were staying on the top floor. She was nine-months pregnant and gave birth at al-Shifa hospital a day after the attack. Our entire family has been destroyed.” Amnesty International (2023) investigated the bombing and found no evidence that military targets were in the building.
Other examples unfortunately abound. Three days after the October 7 attacks, 18 members of the al-Najjar family were killed by an Israeli airstrike, including five children. One of the children, Zein, was two months old. Of the family name al-Najjar, 393 members have been killed and victims range from two months old to 55 years old (Hussein et. al., 2024). On that same day, 12 members of the Hijazi family were killed by an Israeli airstrike, three being children. One of the surviving members, Kamal Hijazi, lost his sister, two brothers, two sisters-in-law, two cousins, and five nieces and nephews (Amnesty International, 2023). Kamal told Amnesty International (2023): “Our family home, a three-story house, was bombed at 5:15 pm. It was sudden, without any warning; that is why everyone was at home.” On 26 October 2023, the al-Astal family suffered the loss of 38 members, including 20 children and 7 women. The attack ranged across three generations of the family, from under one year old to 65 years old (Hussein et al., 2024). A Palestinian who survived the bombing of his home said, “I saw death today. It didn’t take my life. [It took] my family’s. I wish I was killed too…I will mourn them for the rest of my life’” (quoted in Mhawish, 2023). On 18 March 2025, at least three families lost a total of 63 members after airstrikes hit Gaza, killing at least 970 Palestinians, most of them women and children (The New Arab Staff, 2025).
Domicide
Israeli forces have systematically demolished infrastructure in Gaza, constituting domicide. Domicide is “the purposeful and widespread destruction of homes and buildings to make a place unlivable” (Bravermen, 2024). Domicide in Gaza is also intricately connected to genocide. In the first two months of war, the UN reported that at least 46,000 homes were destroyed and another 274,000 were damaged (Rigdon & Choi, 2023). Over the next six months, those numbers rose to at least 79,000 homes being destroyed and another 370,000 damaged (Lederer, 2024). This makes up about 85% of all housing units in Gaza (Patil, 2024). Churches, colleges, mosques, and other various buildings have been completely obliterated by the IDF (Alfonseca et al., 2024). The Palestinian Civil Defense reports that as of May 2024, there are an estimated 100,000 people missing underneath the destruction in Gaza (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – Occupied Palestinian Territory, 2024). The IDF has systematically leveled homes and buildings on the eastern border between Gaza and Israel to create a buffer zone between the two territories. Palestinians who lived there were either forced out or killed to make room for the buffer zone (Diamond et al., 2025). The zone now takes up about 30% of Gaza (UN, 2025).
The following principles are helpful for understanding limitations on domicide under international law: military necessity, principle of proportionality, and collective punishment. First, international law strictly prohibits the destruction of property when it is not deemed fit for military use. For something to qualify as “military use” in armed conflicts, “the only legitimate military purpose is to weaken the military capacity of the other parties to the conflict” (International Committee of the Red Cross, n.d.b). Second, the principle of proportionality under the Geneva Conventions says that the indiscriminate killing of civilians, “which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated,” is illegal (International Committee of the Red Cross, n.d.c). In other words, a retaliation attack must be proportional to the attack of the aggressor.[3] Third, the principle of collective punishment under the Geneva Conventions says that if a person is not personally responsible for a crime, this person is protected under law and should not be punished. This includes measures such as intimidation or terrorism (International Committee of the Red Cross, n.d.a).
Human rights organizations have called for international courts to open an investigation into the Israeli military’s war crime of wanton destruction, yet the Israeli government has justified domicide with claims that it is necessary for self-defense against future attacks. However, Amnesty International (2024a) contends that the possible use of structures by armed groups does not in itself convert civilian infrastructure, like homes and churches, into military objectives. Even though civilian infrastructure may have been used by armed groups before, punitive demolition of these places is regarded as a form of collective punishment, which is prohibited under international law (Amnesty International, 2024a). The IDF is not just destroying infrastructure used by Hamas, but they are using claims of Hamas to destroy much else belonging to civilians. The Special Rapporteur with UNOCHA said that “such injustice is not only unacceptable but a stain on our collective conscience” (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – Occupied Palestinian Territory, 2025).
There are many questions about Palestinians ever being able to return to Gaza given the amount of destruction that has taken place. In 2024, the United Nations Development Programme claimed that human development has been set back at least 20 years in Gaza due to the war, and the longer the war continues, the higher that number will be (Alfonseca et al., 2024). In addition to the setback of human development, the UN also claims that it could take up to 80 years to rebuild all the destroyed homes in Gaza (Patil, 2024). As previously noted, the IDF continues to target hospitals and medical units despite prohibitions under international law; between 7 October 2023 and 20 June 2024, at least 27 hospitals and 12 other medical facilities were hit by at least 136 strikes (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – Occupied Palestinian Territory, 2024). Attacks on hospitals have left northern Gaza with nearly no access to sufficient healthcare (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – Occupied Palestinian Territory, 2024). Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador to Britain, said that “Israel’s plan is to destroy Gaza and make it unliveable and lifeless. Israel’s goal has always been to make it impossible for our people to return to their land’” (quoted in Abraham et al., 2024). In a televised address after the attacks on October 7, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “All the places that Hamas hides in, operates from, we will turn them into ruins” (quoted in Federman & Adwan, 2023). He told the 2.3 million Gazans to get out of Gaza immediately, even though most of them have no way to leave (quoted in Federman & Adwan, 2023).
Familicide and domicide are interconnected because of the relationship between the destruction of a home and the destruction of a family. In attacking and demolishing a home, this also demolishes the family who lived there – whether that be in the physical destruction of the family, or also in the mind and soul of the family. Houses hold memories, storing the lives of family members in the floorboards and the walls; there is an inseparability of houses and families. Craig Jones et al. (2025) explains this by saying that “there is a sense in which home is so essential to life and identity that the destruction of home is experienced as a form of death.”
Moving Forward
There is a dire need to protect Palestinians and their families from further family rights violations – many of which also constitute mass atrocity crimes such as war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. Human rights organizations such as the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights (2025) stress the need for direct actions, such as the immediate end to blocking humanitarian aid such as food, fuel, and medicine. There needs to be an immediate ceasefire, the return of hostages on both sides of the conflict, and accountability for officials who violate international human rights laws and norms. The buffer zone between Gaza and Israel needs to stop expanding and land must be returned to Palestinians. Health care facilities, schools, and religious buildings need to be protected. The rebuilding of Gaza must be supported.
Although the focus of this paper is family rights in Gaza, it is important to make some points about moving forward from the Israel-Hamas War. There is a global condemnation of Israeli actions in Gaza. This is not to be confused or likened with condemnation of the existence of Israel. Both Israel and Palestine deserve to exist as peoples; that is not (or should not be) disputed. Both Israel and Palestine deserve to exist as states. Both groups have cultural ties to the land and have created generations of families who live there. Meanwhile, fear of retaliation by Israel and/or its ally the United States must not deter members of the international communities from calling out blatant violations of human rights law. Accountability should extend to those who authorized the continued support of arms, ammunition, and near-unwavering support to the Israeli government and IDF in its human rights abuses.
Accountability and postwar recovery are only possible with the protection of family rights in Gaza. Gazans must be able to return to their homes and their land, and they need to be given the resources to do so – including adequate food, water, and shelter. The reunification of separated families must be prioritized. To protect maternal and reproductive healthcare, women need access to clean water, antibiotics and medicines, ultrasounds, equipment for medical procedures, and medical personnel to perform the procedures (United Nations Population Fund, 2025a). The loss of children reminds us that children require immediate protection in all circumstances, including in cases of child combatants. There are several global organizations that work to aid and protect Palestinian children (including the Defense for Children Palestine, Save the Children International, UNICEF, and War Child) and all should be generously funded and supported. Recovery from familicide and domicide will never be easy, but requires justice and pathways toward rebuilding. The restoration of Gaza should be globally funded, as every single state has a responsibility to support the rebuilding of what they stood by and watched be destroyed. Governments such as the United States must be held accountable for their complicity in genocide, as recorded in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (United Nations, 1951).
This conflict is not just a war on Hamas combatants, but it is a war on families. With the mass violation of family rights, including the targeting of women and children, we see attempts to eradicate the Palestinian people. United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese says: “Palestine is a wound. What is happening to the Palestinians is a tragedy foretold, and a stain on Israel’s history for which we bear collective responsibility. It is never too late for the world to stand up and do the right thing” (quoted in United Nations Human Rights, 2025a). From the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, it is of the utmost importance to recognize Palestinian resistance and resilience, and to protect, rebuild, and support Palestinian families.
References
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[1] In September 2025, a UN study found that Israeli forces have committed four out of five acts prohibited under the Convention of the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, constituting genocide with deliberate intent to wipe out Palestinians in Gaza (United Nations Human Rights, 2025e).
[2] Notably, a UN report outlines forms of sexual violence that have been perpetrated by the IDF against Palestinian women and girls, such as being strip searched by male IDF officers, being raped or threatened with sexual violence, and being photographed in “degrading” circumstances and uploaded online (United Nations, 2024).
[3] This principle falls into a grey zone with the lack of adequate specificity for proportionality. Israeli forces have justified attacks on the Shifa hospital in Gaza under the proportionality principle and claim that Hamas militants were operating underneath the hospital. Attacks on the hospital left the sick, wounded, elderly, and newborns with even less resources (Wolfendale, 2023).