GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — In the Gaza Strip, an increasing number of women and girls have been resorting to social media to share their experience with domestic abuse. Five campaigns have been launched by activists within two months to fight against domestic abuse. Battered women write their stories on social media, and activists then share them and work to protect the women’s rights and rid them of the violence they are subject to.

This blunt openness about domestic abuse is alien to the Palestinian society, which considers women's issues as sensitive. Such issues, seen as private, are kept away from the media as they could embarrass the concerned woman’s family in a society governed by tribalism.

The rates of violence against women recently escalated in the Gaza Strip, with the death of 11 women since the beginning of this year, according to the 2020 Domestic Violence Survey by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. The survey found that 29% of women in Palestine face a form of violence during their lifetime. “The Gaza governorate registered the highest rate of violence by husbands against married and divorced women,” registering a rate of 41%, according to the survey.

Ahmed al-Hijazee, a women’s rights activist who is taking part in the current campaigns against domestic violence, told Al-Monitor that the lobbying and support campaigns for battered women are very helpful. “Perpetrators of violence against women could face legal prosecution. This is not to mention the scandal and the harm to their reputation, which they fear more than the legal punishment in a conservative society like Gaza.”