Gaza women get reusable menstrual pads via Israeli humanitarian aid

A humanitarian initiative led by Israeli-based organisation NATAN Worldwide Disaster Relief is drawing attention to an often-overlooked aspect of life in Gaza’s displacement camps: menstrual hygiene.

The organisation has delivered 2,000 reusable menstrual hygiene kits to women and girls in the Khan Yunis area, in coordination with Gaza Children’s Village.

Each kit contains four washable pads designed to last approximately a year. In a setting where supply chains are unreliable and waste management systems have largely broken down, the choice of reusable products is deliberate. Disposable alternatives, where available, often accumulate in the absence of garbage disposal, creating both environmental and social pressures, and, for many women and girls, a source of embarrassment and restriction on daily movement.

The initiative emerged not from a strategic plan, but from a personal moment. Alice Miller, NATAN's CEO, described speaking with a Gazan mother whose 14-year-old daughter had just begun menstruating in a tent camp with no access to basic supplies.

“She had nothing to use… not even a piece of cloth,” Miller told The Jewish Independent, recalling how the girl remained inside the tent for three days because she had no way to manage it. For Miller, a mother of a daughter the same age, the moment was impossible to ignore. There was, she said, “no difference” between the two girls, only the circumstances into which they were born.

Acting on that realisation, NATAN developed a program to manufacture reusable pads and distribute them through trusted local partners. The model was designed with input from Gazan women themselves, focusing not only on the product but on how it could realistically be used in conditions of displacement, including access to water, privacy, and safe spaces for washing and drying.