No justice in a genocide: sexual and reproductive health and rights in Gaza

Since October 2023, Gaza, Palestine, has been the site of a humanitarian crisis due to violence from Israel, with numerous violations currently undermining sexual and reproductive health and rights. In this commentary we detail these violations through the activist and theoretical framework of reproductive justice which centres on three tenets: the right to have children, the right not to have children, and the right to parent in safe environments and with dignity. Through examples such as the destruction of healthcare facilities, the lack of access to contraception or abortion and the total inability to parent safely, we document that all three tenets have been decimated through the systematic sexual, reproductive and gender-based violence inflicted on Palestinians by the Israeli Security Forces. We end the commentary with a discussion of “reproductive genocide” which we believe to be a term that accurately captures the wholesale decimation of life in Gaza.