Since late 2024, escalating conflict has deepened Yemen’s already critical humanitarian crisis. Between February and April 2025, heavy bombardments have caused mass civilian casualties, widespread displacement, and the destruction of critical infrastructure. Attacks on key lifelines—Al Hudayda port and Sana’a airport in May—severed supply routes, halting the delivery of food, fuel, medicine, and humanitarian aid. This disruption has crippled humanitarian operations, shutting down health facilities, restricting food distribution, and impeding emergency services—especially in frontline areas. An estimated 9.6 million women and girls are in need of aid, facing mounting barriers to essential services, including maternal health, clean water, and psychosocial support. The destruction of health facilities and a water reservoir has cut off care for over 400 pregnant and lactating women and 9,600 children. Between January and May 2025, over 6,000 people were newly displaced —26% of whom are in female headed households, adding to the 2.3 million women already living in displacement across Yemen. Displaced women face risks from income loss to protection threats. Despite the complexity of the conflict, the fragile cessation of hostilities between the U.S. and the Houthis in Sanaa offers a narrow but critical window for de-escalation and humanitarian response. This moment must be used to scale up gender-responsive aid and restore essential services to displaced and conflict-affected populations.

The war on Gaza has become one of the world’s most brutal man-made humanitarian crises. The war has directly impacted more than 2.2 million people, resulting in an unprecedented number of civilians killed, alongside overwhelming displacement. Since 7 October 2023, more than 36,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, including at least 10,000 women, and an estimated 82,000 people have been injured. The Israeli incursion into Rafah has led to the displacement of nearly 800,000 people since May 2024, many of whom had already been displaced multiple times since October 2023. In tandem, the situation in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has also deteriorated, with more than 500 people killed and 5,000 injured since 7 October. As the death toll increases, severe humanitarian needs continue to grow at an unprecedented rate, in a context where needs were already dire before the current escalation. The war on Gaza remains, among other things, a war on women. Over the past eight months of the war, UN Women has been documenting how the lives of women and girls have deteriorated across sectors, including food security, water, shelter, health, and safety. This Gender Alert is on the work of Women-Led Organizations (WLOs).

Since 7 October 2023, more than 24,620 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip, 70 per cent of whom were women or children. More than 1.9 million people — 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza — have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza — roughly 2.2 million people — are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse. This document provides an overview of the situation in Gaza and articulates UN Women’s work as part of its six-month multisectoral response to the crisis.