As Palestinians mark the National Day of the Palestinian Woman on 26 October, the occasion unfolds under the heaviest of shadows. Across Gaza, women endure the unimaginable, homes destroyed, families buried, and lives reduced to survival under siege. Yet through hunger, displacement and loss, they continue to hold together the fabric of their communities, embodying defiance in the face of annihilation.

In the ruins of Gaza, women teach children in tents, tend to the wounded with dwindling supplies, and grieve in silence for those they can no longer find. They have become both the voice and the heartbeat of a people enduring genocide. Each act of care, each attempt to rebuild amid devastation, stands as quiet testimony to resilience that no war can erase.

Beyond Gaza, women in the West Bank face another kind of struggle, daily restrictions, arrests, and structural oppression that seek to suffocate public life. Still, they persist: in classrooms, in workplaces, and in the streets. The National Day of the Palestinian Woman this year is not merely a commemoration but a declaration, that even amid grief and siege, dignity endures, and the will to live remains unbroken.