Palestinian Manar Nassar offers women’s and children’s clothing for sale in a small project she recently opened to support her family, inside a small tent in the city of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli war placed new burdens and responsibilities on women in the Gaza Strip, including the effort to provide a living, according to Nassar.
New burdens on the women of Gaza
In addition to this are their usual responsibilities at home for those who remain in their homes or inside displacement tents, including raising children, preparing food, and washing clothes and utensils, the implementation of which has become more difficult due to water scarcity and electricity outages.
Overnight, the displaced Nassar found herself responsible for providing for the needs of her family of five people, saying, “The war exhausted us, changed our lives, and placed new burdens and responsibilities on us.”
She added, “During the past eight months, we have gone through very difficult financial, moral and psychological circumstances, both old and young, as the loss of work affected all aspects of life.”
She explained that she went to work as a seller in light of “the lack of our basic needs and the high prices of goods and life necessities.”
She indicated that she set up a clothing sales tent next to the tent in which she lives, in order to reconcile her responsibilities as a mother with the tasks of her new work.
She explained, “My husband helps me with a lot of work inside the tent, so that I can continue working on the clothing selling project, which provides us with our daily livelihood in these difficult circumstances.”
Difficulty providing clothes
Nassar faces difficulty in finding clothes that she offers for sale inside her tent in light of their scarcity among merchants, as a result of the tightening of the siege on the Gaza Strip since last October 7.
While Nassar was convincing one of the displaced women to buy an imported piece of clothing, she said, “I am looking for clothes in the various governorates of the central and southern Gaza Strip, especially clothes for newborns.”
She added, “I also face difficulty in transporting clothes to the tent due to the high transportation costs, which in turn is reflected in the prices of these goods.”
She explained that the clothes she offers for sale are “popular and locally made, with a lower price compared to those imported from abroad, which were stored by citizens, or which they obtained through their expatriate relatives who visited Gaza last summer.”
She added, “There is good interest among citizens in buying clothes from the tent, and women feel very comfortable when they see a woman standing in the project, and they are encouraged to buy and choose clothes for themselves and their children.”
Regarding children’s clothes (newborns), Nassar said, “Their prices are a bit high, due to their lack of availability in merchants.”
We have to defy the odds
She concluded by saying, “My message to everyone is that we must defy the difficulties and not stand idly by and complain about the difficult circumstances and the lack of funds necessary to meet the family’s needs. Therefore, we must all work and strive as much as we can to provide the most basic basic necessities, and not expect anything from anyone.”
Nassar, who was displaced from the northern Gaza Strip to the southern regions, is trying to support her family after her husband lost his job due to the Israeli war on Gaza, like hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were working in the private or government sector.
On Thursday, the Director-General of the International Labor Organization, Gilbert Hongbo, said in statements during a session within the work of the 112th session of the International Labor Conference, that about 200,000 jobs have been lost in Gaza since October 2023 as a result of the Israeli war on the Strip.
The repeated forced displacement due to the devastating and ongoing Israeli war on the Gaza Strip for the ninth month in a row also imposed harsh living conditions on Palestinian families, whose members found themselves forced to carry out many tasks to secure their daily livelihood and manage their daily affairs.
This comes in light of the deteriorating economic conditions as a result of the tightening of the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip for 17 years and the prevention of the entry of goods, which caused the prices of goods in the Gaza Strip to rise due to their scarcity.
Since October 7, 2023, Israel has been waging a war on Gaza that has left nearly 122,000 Palestinians dead or wounded, most of them children and women, and about 10,000 missing amid massive destruction and famine that claimed the lives of children and the elderly.
Israel continues its war, despite a decision by the UN Security Council to stop it immediately, and orders from the International Court of Justice to end the invasion of the city of Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip, and to take measures to prevent acts of “genocide” from occurring, and to improve the miserable humanitarian situation in Gaza.