A delayed smile from Gaza

Islam Jibreel is trying to restore the teeth she lost in the war, after she, her husband, and their only child were struck by an Israeli missile that targeted a “safe zone” in the central Gaza Strip.

Her husband was killed in the attack, leaving Islam to grapple alone with both loss and disfigurement. Her body suffered multiple direct injuries, and doctors told her that 60% of it had sustained third-degree burns. She lost her teeth due to a direct hit to her jaws. Her young son was severely wounded.

Now 27 years old, Islam has come to Egypt with her seven-year-old son to receive treatment. She’s doing everything she can to reclaim fragments of her life—and of her beauty—even if it remains painfully out of reach. Her visits to medical facilities offer only a fraction of what has been lost.

“I never imagined what I protected for years would become a memory. In a single moment, in one airstrike, my life was gone—and with it, my beauty and my husband,” she told Al Manassa.

Islam is not alone. In the midst of Cairo’s bustling streets, there are faces of Palestinian women living in silence, rejection, and fear. They visit clinics for cosmetic surgery seeking laser treatments, skin care, dental implants, hair restoration, burn therapies, and removal of shrapnel—trying to patch up what the missiles tore apart.

These women call themselves survivors of genocide, but they are still fighting a harsh battle against disfigurement, isolation, and the erasure of identity. In these clinics, reconstruction becomes a unique form of resistance and a powerful act of defiance.

According to a March report by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, women in Gaza endure immense burdens and systematic targeting amid the ongoing genocidal war. Their suffering goes beyond death and displacement to include deep physical and psychological crises, all made worse by severe shortages in basic necessities.

Treatment on hold

Noor Abu Tahan, 23, was born with strikingly blue eyes. “When I was born, my family was so happy—my eyes were the color of the sea,” she told Al Manassa. “It was something unusual in our Bedouin family, where eyes are usually brown or black. My mother always told me I got the blue from her grandmother.”

“They used to call me the girl with the blue eyes. But the war stole that name and stole my eyes,” she added.

A direct hit destroyed her right eye. She underwent emergency operations in Gaza just to save her life. Later, she was transferred to Egypt for reconstructive surgery. “I won’t get my sight back, but at least some of the way I used to look.”

When she arrived in Egypt in December 2023, she was referred to Al-Amiri Hospital in Ismailia. But it turned out the hospital lacked both the equipment and funding to carry out the operation. The Egyptian Red Crescent arranged temporary housing for her instead.

“I lost my chance at treatment,” Noor said.

But fate intervened.

At a Palestinian gathering, Noor happened upon a grassroots initiative supporting the wounded. After she shared her story, the group pledged to fund a procedure to implant a glass eye that closely resembled her remaining one—so that others wouldn’t notice the loss.

Women and children make up around 70% of the victims of the ongoing genocide in Gaza. According to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, women who survived death have endured devastating injuries that changed their lives forever. Thousands have lost limbs, and their bodies are marked by burns and trauma, leaving scars that never fade amid a dire shortage of food, medicine, and treatment.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, women and children account for 47% of all Palestinians killed since Oct. 7, with over 28,000 women—most of them mothers—and girls having been killed. Deaths that leave children and elderly people behind with no protection or care.

Women are forced to endure pregnancy under extreme conditions, without food or water, and often give birth in life-threatening environments without medical assistance, according to a report by UN Women.

A human rights activist in Egypt, who requested anonymity, told Al Manassa that last month alone she received dozens of pleas from wounded women in Gaza seeking help to complete their recovery from injuries categorized as “cosmetic.” This designation places them outside the treatment protocols adopted by Egypt’s Health Ministry for patients arriving from Gaza.

The activist, who has been involved in several humanitarian initiatives since Israel’s war on Gaza began, has helped direct some of these women to private or charitable hospitals outside the public healthcare system—with support from Egyptian donors willing to assist Palestinians from Gaza.

The dream of a braid

Nesma Zorob, 21, has been undergoing cosmetic procedures in hopes of restoring her braids, which she lost due to a direct strike to her abdomen and head. The attack required urgent surgery in Gaza to save her life, after which she was transferred to Egypt to continue treatment.

“No hair grows anymore on the area of my scalp that was injured,” she said. “Doctors told me I’d need a hair transplant, and that’s why they sent me to Egypt.” But despite arriving in Feb. 2024, she has yet to undergo the surgery.

“I was shocked when I arrived and found out that Egypt’s Health Ministry doesn’t cover cosmetic operations,” she told Al Manassa. “They just referred me to government-sponsored guest housing.”

Such essential cosmetic surgeries require long treatment periods and very high costs, explained Dr. Mohamed Nada, a specialist in reconstructive and plastic surgery. “Most of the survivors can’t afford them, especially since they came to Cairo on medical referrals funded by the Egyptian government,” he told Al Manassa.

He noted that public hospitals in Egypt don’t cover non-urgent cosmetic or reconstructive procedures, which is why Palestinian women turn to grassroots initiatives, civil society organizations, or personal funding to continue their treatment. This often leads to extended treatment gaps due to lack of resources.

Marks that never fade

Dr. Ahmed El-Badri, a reconstructive surgery consultant in Cairo’s Mohandeseen district, said he had received around 40 cases from Gaza in 2024 alone—most of them women and young girls, including one child under the age of 10.

“Unfortunately, the war has left its mark on every part of these women’s bodies—marks that can’t be fully erased by cosmetic or reconstructive surgery,” he told Al Manassa. “Many of the injuries are so horrific they defy human imagination.”

He recalled one case where a woman had lost nearly all her teeth due to a direct injury to her jaw. “We’ve completed four stages of implants and reconstruction so far, and she’ll need another full year just to get her smile back.”

Complicating treatment even more is the psychological state of many patients.

“Many enter the clinic without saying a word. They refuse to talk about their disfigurement. They can’t even look at themselves. And they’re devastated to learn that these procedures won’t bring back the beauty they once had,” El-Badri added.

Dr. Reem Hassan, a dermatologist and laser specialist, echoed this sentiment.

“During sessions, I often hear them speak of their grief over losing their beauty. Many suffer from complete loss of self-esteem and experience constant episodes of crying over what they’ve lost—whether it’s their loved ones or their appearance,” she said. “Many even wish for death, thinking it would be kinder than the pain they’re living.”

She said most cases require deep laser skin resurfacing, scar removal, pigmentation treatment, and burn therapy. “I later found out I wasn’t alone. At one beauty industry event, we were shocked by the number of women from Gaza visiting aesthetic clinics in Cairo.”

Afraid of the mirror

Psychologist Hiba Zarifa, who has been involved in trauma therapy for displaced Palestinian women since the war began, says that the disfigurement experienced by women from Gaza is not merely a cosmetic issue. “It’s a profound blow to their psychological and social identity—especially at a time when they’ve lost their homes and loved ones.”

She explained that women’s psychological recovery depends not only on their inner strength, but also on the extent and location of their injuries. “The more they can hide the disfigurement, the more they can adapt socially,” she said.

Most of the women Zarifa has treated suffer from what is known as “body dysmorphia post-traumatic stress disorder,” a severe condition marked by a loss of self-confidence and distorted self-perception, which lead to isolation, depression, and repeated crying episodes.

“I’ve met women who go for weeks without speaking or looking in a mirror. They break down in tears whenever they see a photo of themselves, as if they’re shattered all over again.”

Zarifa noted that delayed or ineffective treatment deepens the psychological wounds. This situation is exacerbated by the scale of disfigurement in Gaza, which is completely different from injuries caused by ordinary accidents.

Because of public scrutiny and hurtful questions, many survivors of visible war-related disfigurement isolate themselves. But the therapist, who volunteers her time to treat survivors, emphasized that these women are forging their own kind of resilience.

“They see the loss of their beauty as part of their resistance—an offering to their homeland. Many of them say their bodies are living witnesses to a great war and an unequal battle. Some even expressed a strange sense of contentment, as if their injuries are part of the price of martyrdom—a personal stance in resisting occupation.”

Hundreds of Palestinian women now stand before merciless mirrors, seeing the traces left by Israel’s war machine etched across their bodies, faces, and memories.

While Nesma still waits for someone to help her afford the expensive procedure to recover even a part of what she lost in her near-fatal experience, Islam continues her visits to a specialist clinic—hoping only to reclaim her smile.