In Gaza it is now clear to the world that is witnessing a real genocide. And to a reproductive genocide. Also said reprocide – “reprocidal” -“reprocid” – Just as it was coined the first time from Loretta Ross (co -founder of Sistersong and Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective) in 2017, is a strategy deliberated aimed at undermining the reproduction of the populations, typical of colonizing powers on the colonized communities. In short, a reproductive control as an annihilation tool.
Nothing new, if we want. From European settlers in North America to occupations in Bangladesh to those in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda: reproductive violence has always been used as a weapon and as part of a genocidal strategy, using rape and forced fertilization to move and affirm control over the oppressed population. All indiscriminately, in the notorious tactical of the acquisition of lands, expansion and ethnic cleaning.
In Gaza, now and for years, there are episodes of reproductive violence, an exasperated and desperate continuation of the longtime policies of Israeli colonialists in their demographic conflict against the Palestinians.
Here it is, the reprocide.
Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian It elaborates how Israeli biopolitical and geopolitical restrictions influence reproductive health and inflict serious violence against the east Jerusalem east. In the same way, in the West Bank, the reproductive health of the Palestinians is endangered due to the curfew and the checkpoints imposed by Israel.
And, to refresh the memory a little, between 1947 and 1949, the Zionist forces conquered over 78% of the historic Palestine, practicing ethnic cleaning, destroying about 530 villages and cities and killing about 15,000 Palestinians in a series of mass atrocities, including over 70 massacres.
At least 750,000 Palestinians, on a population of 1.9 million in historical Palestine, were forcibly displaced beyond the boundaries of the new Israeli state. And here the Palestinians are subject to multiple measures and strategies to control and supervise the reproduction, in the light of the desire of the Israeli state to maintain the Jewish demographic supremacy.
Prevent the birth of future generations
From 7 October, Israel killed at least 50,000 Palestinians in Gaza (including those whose bodies remain buried under the rubble), 17,000 of whom are children. On June 24, 2024, Save the Children reported that 21,000 children had disappeared and that their destiny is not yet clear.
Whether they have been kidnapped or are under the rubble is not yet known, but it is expected that this number will be significantly higher, as mentioned by Rasha Khatib, Martin Mckee and Salim Yusuf In an article published on Lancet In July 2024, which estimated that at least 186,000 Palestinians were killed in Gaza directly and indirectly.
According to Mohammed Saqr, spokesman for the media of the Nasser Medical Complex of Khan Youunis, “(a) the medical teams, with the scarcity of medical supplies in the emergency departments, are focusing on the rescue of children and women to preserve the Palestinian descent in Gaza”
In fact, the attacks directed to women and children – and also to men – are the proven proof of a clear intention of annihilating them and uprooting entire Palestinian bloodlines. From 7 October, the Israeli genocide has canceled more than 900 Palestinian families in Gaza from the civil register. Many more thousands have only one or two surviving family members.
Hospitals and pregnancies under attack
And not only that: another – terrifying – element of reprocidal It is the attack on hospitals. In December 2023, an Israeli missile struck the largest clinic for the fertility of Gaza, the center at Basma Ivf (In vitro fertilization)destroying more than 4,000 embryos and over 1,000 sperm vials and non -fertilized eggs.
There were 5,000 lives in a shell, Dr. Bahaeldeen Ghalayini, the obstetrician who founded the clinic, will say on Reuters.
More than 177,000 women are exposed to health risks, such as non -transmissible diseases, hunger and malnutrition during pregnancy, which threaten their children not yet born. According to the UN, about 50,000 women in Gaza were pregnant at the beginning of the genocide, while for the WHO every day, about 183 women give birth and at least 15% of them meet complications. In addition, the spontaneous abortion rate jumped by 300% at unprecedented levels in the first months. Many women are forced to undergo cesarean cuts without anesthesia, sterilization or pain relievers or post-partum antibiotics. The rest, even to say it.
All these factors influence – and will continue to influence – long -term reproductive health.
Risks to reproductive health due to hygiene conditions
The reprocidal It is further exacerbated by deliberate environmental deprivation. The rigid block and Israeli restrictions on clean water, sanitary products and hygiene structures increase the infections of women and girls, with a direct impact on their reproductive health.
Women and girls are missing products for the menstrual cycle and post-partum, which affects their health, as well as on their dignity. They are forced to improvise, replacing the absorbents with pieces of cloth and fabric of the curtain, and using them for most of the day or washing and reusing them.
I talked about it here: what it means to have menstruation for the girls and women of Gaza: the nightmare of which nobody talks about
Israeli forces have systematically targeted civil infrastructures, Stephen Graham speaks of a way of “turn off the cities“, Meaning of course, the intentional strategy to make Gaza uninhabitable.
Israeli attacks on health infrastructures, including hospitals, maternity and emergency room departments, limiting the access of women to basic health care, on the other hand, are nothing more than this: a reprocal within a genocide that we do not want to see.
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