Israel's war leaves girls in Gaza facing marriage and motherhood

At 15, Najwa married in a white dress. Before she turned 16, she was a widow and a mother.

Her story is one of the less visible consequences of Israel's war in Gaza, where the loss of parents, widespread poverty and displacement have pushed some teenage girls into marriage in the hope of finding protection and security.

For girls who have already lost their homes and families, marriage can appear to offer a way forward.

But the responsibilities of being a wife and mother can bring new forms of hardship to children who are still grieving, still growing and still in need of protection.

**Najwa: The white dress that ended in widowhood **

Najwa was the only girl in her family of three boys. Her marriage came amid extreme poverty, war and social and cultural pressures, leading her to marry a man six years older than her.

At that age, Najwa did not fully understand what marriage meant. She saw the white dress. She saw the wedding day. She saw herself as a bride. But she did not understand what it meant to become a wife, to carry the responsibilities of a household, or to enter a world of decisions and obligations when she had not yet left childhood behind.

The white dress was the only part of marriage that a 15-year-old could understand. What came afterwards, she could not.

Then came the day that changed her life completely. Her husband joined a group heading to aid queues and flour trucks in northern Gaza, searching for food amid hunger and siege. But the group came under Israeli bombardment, and Najwa's husband was killed.

Overnight, she became a widow. Najwa returned to her family's home carrying a child who had become fatherless.

Najwa was no longer simply a girl who had married young. She was now a young widow and a mother, while she herself was still in need of someone to care for her.

At fifteen, Najwa should have been returning from school and telling her mother about her day. Instead, she returned to her family's home carrying a child and a title no child should have to know so soon: widow.

**Fatima: When marriage becomes another tent **

Fatima was 16 when she married. Her sister shares her story, describing how Fatima moved into a tent after the marriage, where she lived with her husband, his mother, and his family.

There was no enclosed home with doors she could close when arguments became unbearable. There was no privacy. There was barely enough space even between family members.

Fatima's husband was 19. He was unemployed and had not completed his education. He, too, was a young man trying to survive the conditions of war, yet he had also become responsible for a wife not much younger than he was.

Inside the tent, daily friction between Fatima, her mother-in-law, and her husband's family turned into bitter conflict.

Her sister says Fatima was deprived of food and beaten.

The surrounding tents were close enough for neighbours to hear what was happening.

On some occasions, women or neighbours nearby asked her, "Don't you have a family to ask about you?"

The question itself was painful. At 16, Fatima was married, but she still needed someone to ask about her and protect her, just as any child would. The marriage ended in divorce.

But divorce did not give Fatima her childhood back, nor did it erase what she had experienced inside that tent.

She left the marriage, but she was no longer the same girl who had entered it. She came out carrying memories of pain far greater than a sixteen-year-old should have to bear.

**'She is a child carrying a child' **

The cost is not only social. Dr Islam Al-Madhoun, a gynaecologist from Gaza, describes cases of underage girls attending hospitals while they are still children themselves.

Some do not understand what pregnancy or childbirth means, and some do not even understand the medical examinations they are undergoing.

The doctor describes the scene with a sentence that captures the tragedy: "She is a child carrying a child."

Behind those words is an entire life that has collapsed.

A girl standing on an examination table, unable to fully understand what is happening to her body. A girl who should be at school, but is pregnant. A girl asking when she can return to her classroom, while the school she imagines returning to may no longer exist.

From a mental health perspective, losing parents, a home or a sense of stability can be profoundly traumatic for a child.

When early marriage is added to this, the girl may face several major upheavals at once: grief, displacement, loss of education, marriage, and possibly pregnancy and motherhood.

These are not natural stages of growing up. They are a succession of crises that accumulate.

**A trauma that does not end with the marriage **

Dr Safaa S., a psychologist from Gaza, says that child marriage does not end with the marriage contract. Instead, it can become the beginning of a long chain of psychological trauma.

She describes seeing girls who should have been carrying schoolbags carrying babies instead; girls who should have been asking about their futures asking instead how they could survive marriages they were never prepared for.

She says one of the most dangerous aspects of these cases is that a girl's silence can be interpreted as acceptance, when in reality it may reflect fear or an inability to ask for help.

For girls already carrying the trauma of war, displacement and loss, the psychological burden of early marriage can become even heavier. They may find themselves facing violence, isolation, fear and responsibilities that exceed their emotional and developmental capacity.

Dr Safaa says: "Most of all, what hurts me is that some of these girls did not need to learn how to become wives. First, they needed to feel safe and to know that they still had the right to be children."

Her words point to a reality that statistics alone cannot capture: a girl can be legally described as a wife while emotionally and psychologically remaining a child who needs protection.

**Protection for girls in war **

Israel's ongoing genocide has forced many children in Gaza to grow up quickly. But forcing a child to carry adult responsibilities does not make her an adult.

Fatima did not need a marriage that took her into a crowded tent and a relationship that ended in violence and divorce.

Najwa did not need a white dress that made her a wife and mother before she understood what marriage meant, only to turn her into a widow at fifteen.

The child Dr Al-Madhoun sees on the examination table did not need to learn about pregnancy and childbirth before she learned to return to school.

Perhaps this is the most painful truth behind stories of early marriage during war: some girls did not choose marriage because they were ready for married life. They chose it because the alternatives appeared more dangerous.

But if a 15-year-old girl is forced to choose between the fear of being left alone and the fear of marriage, the problem is not the girl. The problem is a world that has left her no third choice.

In Gaza, where children have lost homes, schools and members of their families, there is another danger that is less visible: that they will also lose the right to childhood.

A teenage girl should not be expected to be a wife, a mother and a provider. She needs someone to protect her. Not someone to place upon her the responsibility of protecting herself and a new family while she is still trying to understand how she survived the war.

Dr Haya Hijazi is a gynaecologist and obstetrician from Gaza