In Gaza’s Ruins, a Women-Only Café Becomes a Sanctuary of Privacy and Dignity

This piece is published in collaboration with Egab.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Sama Qudaih hunches over her medical textbooks in the corner of Makan Café, scribbling notes about blood circulation and nervous systems while streaming lectures on her tablet. In Gaza’s Al-Mawasi, the thin coastal strip that is housing at least 700,000 people displaced amid Israel’s war in Gaza, the third-year medical student at Al-Azhar University has found refuge in Gaza’s only women-only café.

“One of the disasters of war for women is losing our privacy completely, even in the simplest details of our lives, stripping us of our most basic human rights,” said the 21-year-old, her voice tight with frustration. “Imagine that we can’t remove our hijabs and must stay in modest clothing for 24 hours because we live with our relatives' families in public displacement camps.”

Young Palestinian women work at Makan Café, Gaza’s only women-only café.

Qudaih, displaced from Khuza’a in eastern Khan Younis to al-Mawasi in March, struggled to find anywhere offering women privacy amid male-dominated internet cafés and tech hubs serving students. In Gaza's deeply conservative society, gender separation has long been the norm — universities maintain separate sections for male and female students, and social gatherings typically divide along gender lines. But Israel’s war in Gaza, which has killed over 61,000 people, has shattered these social structures, forcing families into overcrowded displacement camps where traditional privacy boundaries have collapsed entirely.

“I can't remove my hijab or wear light clothes to escape the intense heat,” Qudaih continued. “I can't lie down outside our burning tent. I can't use the bathroom or shower without extensive arrangements because the space is shared and open to everyone."

Before the war, Qudaih lived in a separate house with a garden and private bedrooms — “a life like any human being.” Now, after multiple displacements and the complete destruction of her hometown by Israeli forces, she dreams of studying medicine abroad, not just to escape Gaza’s inferno, but to have a private room, bed, desk, and bathroom again. “Nobody talks about what we suffer.” she said.

Makan Café, with its nylon walls offering privacy, solar-powered fans and routers, and relatively spacious seating, has emerged as a much-needed sanctuary for Gaza’s women.

Makan is owned by Baraa Kullab, a 24-year-old whose family owned a stationary business before the war.

“As the shelling continued and displacement widened, I came to see and hear how much women, particularly female students, struggle to find a place of their own. It became my goal to create a place that offers them the connectivity and privacy they needed,” he said of the venue that opened in May.

Due to Israel’s total blockade since March, the venue is unable to serve any food or drinks, reflecting the catastrophic food shortages that have emptied markets and pushed all 2.1 million people in Gaza toward famine conditions. According to the United Nation’s Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) platform, two out of three famine thresholds have been reached in Gaza: plummeting food consumption and acute malnutrition. At least 16 children under five have died from hunger-related causes since mid-July.

But Makan does offer relative comfort.

At the café's western corner, university lecturer Sanaa Al-Jaidi grades students' assignments while a fan oscillates beside her, providing minimal relief from coastal humidity. Despite her mind being preoccupied with her five children, aged 9 to 20, whom she left behind in their deteriorating tent amid “deadly hunger, burning heat, and non-stop shelling,” she finds solace in this rare women-only environment.

“Just reaching this place makes you feel comfortable, then working quietly without embarrassment from any man's presence,” said Al-Jaidi, displaced for the sixth time after Israeli forces destroyed her home in western Khan Younis. “The place improves your morale and takes away the communal state you live in during displacement, especially since displacement tents are open to everyone.”

The loss of privacy extends far beyond physical space. “We dream of returning to our private rooms and our private homes,” Al-Jaidi told More to Her Story. “We used to separate ourselves within a room, and even from our children sometimes. Now all women’s lives are open to all families and all displaced people, elderly and young, men and women.”

Gaza's traditional social fabric, built around extended family networks and gender-specific spaces, has been decimated. Women who once hosted elaborate celebrations — from New Year feasts to Mother's Day gatherings and birthday parties with tables laden with food — now cannot even find space to grieve privately or counsel their children away from prying eyes.

Nineteen-year-old Zina Safi, a high school student who lost two years of education due to the war's disruption, discovered the café by chance. “I was surprised by the existence of a place special for female students,” she said. “Just having such a place reminded me and restored hope that it’s possible to preserve what remains of privacy, whose very concept has vanished in Gaza during the war.”

The crisis has driven some women to create their own solutions. Amal Issa, 48, worked with other displaced women to build a small arbor from wood, fabric, and plastic between their tents, elevated on a small hill for better ventilation amid soaring temperatures and massive overcrowding.

“We have endured bitterness living in communal life with my four daughters, especially the two over 18,” said Issa, who is mother of seven. “They would cry from shame because life is public. Everyone knows when you enter the bathroom, when you have your period, what you wear. We can’t even hide our underwear and outer clothes from people's eyes. We live in a constant state of humiliation and shame.”

They say the psychological toll is devastating. “Our social and religious reality makes merely revealing anything about a woman a crime, but during displacement we can only be part of the public in every detail of our lives,” Issa explained.

Tahani Qasim, coordinator at Gaza’s Life Center for Women's Protection and Empowerment, describes the loss of privacy as "catastrophic beyond words — no less harmful to women than losing food and water." Field teams have documented women afraid to use bathrooms at night due to security concerns or embarrassment, waiting until sunrise to relieve themselves.

"Some consequences we've observed include deprivation from marital relations or even talking with husbands, deprivation from physical and psychological communication," Qasim said. "Women can't direct their children or perform traditional household tasks because they’re living in the street."

Dignity kits, which are typically provided by humanitarian organizations to displaced women and containing essentials like sanitary pads, soap, and access to private hygiene spaces, are virtually unavailable amid the crisis in Gaza. As the territory enters Phase 5 famine conditions, the most severe level of food insecurity marked by widespread starvation and death, even specialized services for women have become nearly impossible to sustain, with both staff and beneficiaries struggling to survive.

“Privacy is a cornerstone of life for any woman,” Qasim emphasized. “If she loses it, she loses life itself.”