In the charred remnants of their cities, many Gazan women carry a loss that would flatten most lives, yet some rise. Among them is Rawya Mohammed Abdel Aal, a widow twice over and mother-in-law to another martyr. Her grief is profound, but so too is the strength she has sculpted from it, becoming a lifeline for others left bereft.

Rawya’s journey began long before the latest horror. Her first husband fell in 2008; her second lost his life in the ongoing genocide that engulfed Gaza from 7 October 2023. Today, her daughter Ru’a faces widowhood too. Rather than surrender to despair, Rawya, a trained lawyer, founded “The Rise of a Woman”, a grassroots fellowship for widows: a space to heal, learn, and stand again.

Workshops in trauma relief, legal know-how, spiritual reflection, and life skills gather women displaced into shelters, tents, and schools. Rawya listens to stories no one wants to hear: a widow who weeps not for the dead but for how to feed her children; another who mutters, “What about me? Don’t I matter?” Such moments are Rawya’s fuel, because in each anguished voice she hears echoes of her own.

The scars are heavy. Resources are few. But Rawya says this truth: “Every tear, every sleepless night, I carry them because they show your strength.” She tells Gaza’s widows they are not invisible. That even when homes are rubble and futures uncertain, their dignity must not be surrendered.

In Gaza today, thousands of homes lie destroyed, bodies unrecovered, lives reframed by loss. But women, wives, daughters, mothers, are quietly saying: we will rebuild ourselves. Widows are rising not only to bear witness, but to shape hope.