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Invisible at the Intersection: Older Women, Armed Conflict and the Right to Remedy

  • 3 days ago
  • 14 min read

O7J POLICY BRIEF SUBMITTED TO THE UN HUMAN RIGHTS MECHANISM








In Memory of Hannah Katzir — and in Recognition of Her Own Agency 


This policy brief and analysis are dedicated to the memory of Hannah Katzir (1946–2024), of Kibbutz Nir Oz. To read more about Hannah's story please see here. 

 


Hannah Katzir, published with the express authorisation of her surviving family. 


Hannah was abducted from her home on October 7, 2023 and held captive in Gaza before being released on 24 November 2023. Her husband, Rami Katzir, was murdered on October 7. Their son, Elad Katzir, was also abducted and was killed in captivity. Hannah survived captivity, but never recovered her health; she died in December 2024, at the age of 78, following what Kibbutz Nir Oz described as a prolonged struggle with complex medical complications after her release. (Read more about Hannah's story) 


But Hannah's story should not be told only through vulnerability, captivity and loss. It is also a story of agency and the demand for justice. 


While Hannah was held captive and unable to act for herself, members of her family signed a Power of Attorney on her behalf so that O7J could act to pursue justice and accountability. After her release, and only days before her death, Hannah exercised her own agency: she personally signed a Power of Attorney demanding justice and accountability for the crimes committed against her and her family. 


That act matters. 


Older women affected by armed conflict are not merely a category of "vulnerable persons". They are rights-holders, survivors, witnesses, family and community members—and agents in the pursuit of their own rights and justice. 


O7J has the lifelong privilege and responsibility of representing Hannah, through her surviving family, in pursuit of the justice she herself demanded. 

 

A Protection Gap Hiding in Plain Sight 


When discussions focus on women in armed conflict, attention frequently centres on women of reproductive age, displacement and sexual violence. When older persons are considered, the focus often shifts to humanitarian assistance, healthcare and accessibility. 


Older women sit at the intersection of these conversations—and too often remain insufficiently visible in both. 


The documented experiences of older women during the 7 October 2023 attacks illustrate the consequences. 


Age and gender did not operate separately. They intersected with disability, chronic illness, reduced mobility, caregiving responsibilities, social isolation, dependence on continuous medical care, displacement and the challenges of rebuilding life at an advanced age. 


These factors shaped who could reach safety, who could flee, who remained behind to care for others, who could endure captivity, and what survival and rebuilding meant afterwards. 


October 7 Justice Without Borders (O7J) represents more than 480 victims of the October 7 attacks, including 44 women aged 60 and older who were murdered, abducted or survived the attacks. 


Drawing on this work, our new policy brief, Invisible at the Intersection: Older Women, Armed Conflict and the Need for Intersectional Protection, asks a broader question: 


What happens when international protection, humanitarian and accountability systems recognise age, gender, disability and health separately, while victims experience them simultaneously? 


The answer matters not only for October 7. It matters for how international law protects older women in armed conflict—and how protection, accountability and remedy can become more responsive to the reality victims actually experience. 



 

International Law Protects Older Women — But Protection Remains Fragmented 


Older women are not without protection under international law. 


International human rights law provides important protections through, among others, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). International humanitarian law provides additional protections to civilians affected by armed conflict. 


Importantly, CEDAW General Recommendation No. 27 on older women and protection of their human rights specifically addresses the multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination older women may experience. 


At the intersection of gender and armed conflict, CEDAW General Recommendation No. 30 on women in conflict prevention, conflict and post-conflict situations provides another important normative framework. 


In February 2026, the CEDAW Committee adopted an Addendum to General Recommendation No. 30 in relation to the Women, Peace and Security agenda, further developing that framework. These instruments are important. 


But they also expose the challenge: 


The relevant protections exist across multiple bodies of law and institutional frameworks, while the lived experience of the victim crosses all of them. 


An older woman with limited mobility and a chronic illness who remains with a dependent spouse during an armed attack does not experience "age", "gender", "disability", "health" and "caregiving" as five separate legal categories. 

She experiences one reality.


Effective protection, accountability and remedy must be capable of seeing that reality as a whole.


Older Age Is Not Synonymous With Vulnerability 


This distinction is fundamental.


Older women should not be understood simply as an inherently "vulnerable group". Older persons are rights-holders with autonomy, agency, experience and diverse capacities.


Hannah Katzir's own demand for justice shortly before her death is one powerful reminder of that agency.


The relevant question is therefore not whether older women are inherently vulnerable. It is how age interacts with gender, disability, health, mobility, caregiving roles, the surrounding environment and the conduct of perpetrators to create particular barriers, risks and forms of harm.


An intersectional approach does not label older women as inherently vulnerable. It asks why particular circumstances, systems or failures may make some older women more exposed to violence, less able to access protection, or less likely to obtain effective remedy.


When Intersecting Barriers Shaped Exposure to Violence 


Our policy brief identifies five interconnected patterns.


1. Health and disability can become barriers to protection 


Many older women live with chronic illness, physical limitations or dependence on continuous medication.


During a sudden armed attack, these circumstances can affect the ability to move rapidly, reach shelter, evacuate independently or survive prolonged periods without medical assistance.


For hostages, interruption of medication and medical treatment can transform an already unlawful and dangerous captivity into an acute threat to health, physical integrity and life.


Emergency protection cannot be designed around an assumed able-bodied civilian who can evacuate quickly and independently. 


2. Mobility barriers can become protection failures 


During the October 7 attacks, the ability to move rapidly could determine survival. 

Older women with reduced mobility were less able to reach protected spaces, escape communities under attack or flee homes that subsequently became sites of shootings, arson and abductions.


The issue is therefore not simply that some older women had reduced mobility. 

A protection system that assumes civilians can rapidly evacuate risks leaving those least able to move behind.


Mobility must consequently be incorporated into emergency preparedness, evacuation planning, shelter accessibility and humanitarian response. 


3. Caregiving responsibilities can increase exposure 


Older women are frequently caregivers—not simply recipients of care. 

Some remained with spouses, grandchildren or relatives with disabilities rather than fleeing alone. Others were attacked or abducted while sheltering alongside family members and dependants.


Caregiving can therefore influence decisions made in the midst of an attack and increase exposure to violence.Caregiving itself should be recognised as a relevant conflict-related protection factor.


Emergency and evacuation systems need to consider not only whether an older person can leave, but whether she is responsible for another person who cannot. 


4. Age must not create an investigative blind spot for sexual violence 


Conflict-related sexual violence is frequently discussed through assumptions about younger women.


The available documentation concerning October 7 challenges that assumption. 


Older women must be visible within the documentation, investigation and prosecution of conflict-related sexual violence. Age should never become a reason why possible sexual violence is overlooked, inadequately investigated or excluded from accountability frameworks. 


This is particularly important where victims were killed and cannot testify themselves, requiring investigators to rely on forensic, testimonial, digital and other evidence. 


5. Medical dependency can aggravate the harms of captivity 


More than one-fifth of the hostages taken into Gaza were aged 65 or older. 

For medically dependent older women, captivity could involve starvation, medical neglect, interruption of essential treatment, restricted mobility, psychological abuse and severe physical deterioration. 


Hostage-taking therefore cannot be understood only as deprivation of liberty. 

For an older person dependent on medication, medical assistance or mobility support, the conditions of captivity may create additional and potentially life-threatening forms of harm. 


And release does not necessarily end those harms. 


Older survivors may return to displacement, destroyed homes and communities, the murder of spouses, relatives and friends, deteriorated health and the loss of social networks constructed over decades. 


 


Rebuilding at 85 Is Not the Same as Rebuilding at 30 


This raises a further question that international protection frameworks do not sufficiently address: 


What does effective remedy mean when age—and time itself—matter? 


For an older survivor, the loss of a home may also mean the loss of decades of accumulated security, familiarity and independence. 


The destruction or displacement of a community may mean the loss of relationships and support networks built over 40, 50 or 60 years. 


A lengthy process of reconstruction, restitution, compensation or community rebuilding also has a fundamentally different impact when a victim is 80 or 85. 

Time is therefore relevant to remedy. 


A remedy that arrives too late may formally exist while failing, in practice, to restore meaningful enjoyment of rights. 


Age-sensitive remedy should consequently consider not only financial compensation, but also housing, continuity of healthcare, rehabilitation, psychosocial support, community reconstruction, accessibility, independence and the restoration of social support structures. 


This is not preferential treatment. It is part of making remedy effective in the circumstances of the individual victim. 

 

The Digital, Psychological and Community Dimensions 


The harms also extended beyond the immediate physical attacks. 


Images and videos depicting elderly victims and hostages were circulated widely online, extending humiliation, fear and psychological harm to families and communities. 


For survivors, displacement and the destruction of long-established communities could compound the original trauma. 


Home, community, independence, routine, medical support and lifelong relationships are not peripheral considerations. For many older people, they are fundamental components of security, dignity, autonomy and identity. 


Their destruction must therefore be understood when assessing both harm and appropriate remedy. 

 

Three Different Gaps: Protection, Accountability and Remedy 


The experiences documented after October 7 reveal that the problem is not one-dimensional. 


A protection gap 


Emergency planning, evacuation systems, shelters, communications and humanitarian responses may insufficiently account for mobility limitations, disability, medication dependency, chronic illness and caregiving responsibilities. 


An accountability gap 


Documentation and investigative processes may fail to identify age-specific or intersectional harms—including sexual violence, torture, medical deprivation, enforced disappearance and the aggravated consequences of captivity. 

If these harms are not properly documented, they risk disappearing from the factual and legal record. 


A remedy gap 


Traditional approaches to compensation, rehabilitation, restitution and reconstruction may inadequately capture the consequences of losing home, community, health, independence and lifelong social infrastructure at an advanced age. 


Effective remedy therefore requires more than acknowledging that older women were among the victims. 


It requires understanding how they experienced the violation and what justice requires in response. 

 

What Needs to Change 


Our policy brief proposes an intersectional approach across four stages: prevent; document and investigate; ensure accountability; and remedy and rebuild. 


PREVENT 


Emergency preparedness must become age- and gender-responsive. 

Evacuation planning, shelter accessibility, emergency communications and humanitarian assistance should explicitly account for mobility limitations, disability, chronic illness, medication dependency and caregiving responsibilities. 

Critically, older persons themselves should participate in the design of preparedness and protection systems. An approach grounded in rights and agency means designing systems with older persons, not simply for them. 


DOCUMENT & INVESTIGATE 


International and national investigations should systematically document violence against older women. 


This includes killings, abductions, torture, enforced disappearance, hostage-taking, medical neglect, conflict-related sexual violence, psychological harm and the consequences of displacement. 


Age- and sex-disaggregated data are essential. Investigative protocols should also avoid assumptions about age—including assumptions that older women are unlikely to be victims of sexual violence. 


ACCOUNTABILITY 

Intersectional harms must be visible within accountability processes. 

Investigators, prosecutors and courts should consider how age, gender, disability, medical dependency and other circumstances may affect the nature and gravity of the harm suffered. 


Hostage-taking and captivity, in particular, should be assessed in light of the consequences of deprivation of medication, treatment, mobility assistance and other necessities for medically dependent older persons. 


REMEDY & REBUILD 

Remedies must respond to the circumstances of older victims. 


Reparation frameworks should take account of health deterioration, displacement, loss of independence, destruction of homes and communities, loss of caregivers and support networks, and the limited time older survivors may have to benefit meaningfully from reconstruction and restitution. 


Justice delayed has particular consequences when a victim is already at an advanced age. 


Why This Matters Now: An Emerging International Framework for Older Persons 


This debate is no longer theoretical. 


In April 2025, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted Resolution 58/13, establishing an Open-ended Intergovernmental Working Group for the elaboration of a legally binding instrument on the promotion and protection of the human rights of older persons. 


This creates an important opportunity. 


As States consider the content of a future international instrument, the experiences of older persons affected by armed conflict, terrorism, hostage-taking, displacement, gender-based and sexual violence, disability and loss of access to essential healthcare should be part of the discussion from the outset. 


The experience of older women after October 7 can therefore contribute to a much wider international conversation: 


How should international law protect older persons when age intersects with armed conflict, gender, disability and mass violence—and what should effective remedy look like afterwards? 

 

From Individual Victims to International Action: What O7J Is Doing 

For O7J, this policy work does not stand apart from legal representation. 

Our starting point is always the individual victim—and the agency, rights and choices of that individual victim. 


Our work then moves outward—from pro bono legal representation and evidence-building to investigators, prosecutors, courts, United Nations human rights mechanisms and international accountability institutions. 


The purpose is twofold: to pursue justice and remedy for the victims we represent, and to ensure that what happened to them contributes to a stronger factual and legal record capable of improving accountability and protection. 


O7J currently represents more than 480 victims of the October 7 attacks, including 44 women aged 60 and older who were murdered, abducted or survived the attacks. 


Bringing the Findings Directly to UN Human Rights Mechanisms 


In preparation for upcoming October 2026 sessions and further engagement, O7J has shared the findings and recommendations of Invisible at the Intersection with relevant UN human rights mechanisms and Special Procedures, including: 


  • Independent Expert on the Enjoyment of All Human Rights by Older Persons 

  • Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls 

  • Working Group on Discrimination Against Women and Girls 

  • Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 

  • Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health 

  • Special Rapporteur on the Promotion of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Guarantees of Non-Recurrence 

  • Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances 

  • Special Rapporteur on Torture 

  • Special Rapporteur on Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights 

  • United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (UN CTED) 


Through these engagements, O7J seeks to bring victims' experiences and evidence into international reporting and monitoring processes; support complaint and accountability procedures; advance legal analysis concerning State and non-State actor responsibility; and contribute to the development of international standards concerning torture, enforced disappearance, hostage-taking, conflict-related sexual violence and the rights of women, older persons and persons with disabilities. 

The objective is not simply visibility. It is to translate visibility into protection, accountability and remedy. 


 

How O7J Connects Individual Representation to Systemic Accountability 


O7J's engagement with UN human rights mechanisms does not stand apart from our litigation and other legal action. 


It forms part of our Strategic Litigation and Legal Action, connecting the reality experienced by victims in the kibbutzim, cities and music festivals attacked on October 7 with the investigators, prosecutors, courts and international institutions capable of establishing facts, attributing individual and other forms of responsibility, and pursuing accountability. 


Different mechanisms perform different legal and institutional functions. 

But their work can reinforce one another. 


Our sustained engagement concerning conflict-related sexual violence provides an important example. 


Following October 7, the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict (SRSG-SVC) conducted a mission to Israel and the occupied West Bank. 


Its March 2024 mission report found reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence, including rape and gang rape, occurred during the October 7 attacks in multiple locations. With respect to hostages, the mission found clear and convincing information that some had been subjected to conflict-related sexual violence, including rape, sexualized torture and sexualized cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, and at the time found reasonable grounds to believe such violence might be ongoing. 


Separately, on 20 May 2024, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) applied for arrest warrants against three senior Hamas leaders—Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri (Deif) and Ismail Haniyeh. The alleged crimes included extermination, murder, hostage-taking, rape and other acts of sexual violence, torture and other crimes, with rape and other acts of sexual violence alleged as both crimes against humanity and war crimes in the context of captivity. 

O7J's engagement with the ICC on behalf of October 7 victims began as early as 15 October 2023 and has continued throughout the subsequent investigation. 

That sustained engagement matters. 


In July 2025, the UN Secretary-General issued his annual report on conflict-related sexual violence, S/2025/389, covering developments during 2024, available here. The report named Hamas, joined by other Palestinian armed groups, including the military arms of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Popular Resistance Committees and the Palestinian Mujahideen Movement, as well as civilians from Gaza as co-perpetrators of the October 7 attack. 

In addressing Israel and the State of Palestine, the report referred to the findings of the Special Representative for Sexual Violence in Conflict (March 2024 report), the UN Commission of Inquiry’s detailed report on Palestinian militias' violations on and since October 7, 2023 (June 2024 report) and the ICC Prosecutor's May 2024 applications concerning the three Hamas leaders. Its annex listed Hamas among parties credibly suspected of committing or being responsible for patterns of rape or other forms of sexual violence in situations of armed conflict. 


The significance of this example is not that one institution simply duplicates another. It is that evidence, legal analysis, findings and accountability processes can form part of a wider international record. 


O7J's work before the ICC is one strand of a broader legal strategy through which we seek to ensure that victims are represented wherever facts are established, crimes are legally characterised, responsibility is examined and accountability can be pursued. 


In July 2026, O7J returned from an additional investigative mission to The Hague as part of our continuing work to advance accountability for the crimes committed against the victims we represent. 


This is why sustained engagement across mechanisms matters. 


A victim's experience can become evidence. Evidence can contribute to establishing a pattern. Legal proceedings can establish individual responsibility. International findings can strengthen the historical and legal record. And that record can, in turn, inform accountability, remedy and stronger protection standards. 


Our approach is therefore not to choose between individual representation, criminal proceedings, international justice and systemic human rights work. 


It is to connect them. 

 

Why This Matters Beyond October 7 


The patterns identified in this policy brief are not unique to Israel. 

Older women affected by armed conflicts and humanitarian emergencies around the world may experience combinations of age discrimination, gender discrimination, disability, deteriorating health, restricted mobility, displacement, caregiving responsibilities, isolation and dependence on medical and community infrastructure. 


October 7 provides a particularly important case study of what can happen when these intersecting circumstances meet a sudden, large-scale attack against civilian communities. 


The lessons should inform future emergency preparedness, humanitarian response, documentation, investigations, prosecutions, international human rights standards and reparation programmes. 


International protection systems become more effective when they see victims as they actually experience violence—not as separate legal categories. 

 

Making Older Women Visible—and Making Visibility Matter 


The central lesson of Invisible at the Intersection is straightforward: Age and gender do not operate separately during armed conflict. 


Neither should the systems designed to protect people, investigate violations, establish responsibility or provide remedy. 


And recognising older women means recognising not only the particular harms they may experience, but also their autonomy, their agency and their right to participate in decisions concerning protection, accountability and remedy. 


Making older women visible therefore means ensuring that their experiences are documented and investigated; that the particular harms they suffered are legally recognised; that those responsible can be held accountable; that their own voices and choices are respected; and that remedies respond to the realities of rebuilding life at an advanced age. 


But visibility is only the beginning. Justice begins with the individual victim—but it should not end there. 


The experience of one victim can expose a protection gap. Evidence can establish a pattern. Legal action can establish responsibility. Remedy can respond to the harm. And the lessons learned can change how the next victim is protected. 


Hannah Katzir's story brings us back to where we began. 


Even after captivity, bereavement and profound deterioration in her health, she remained a rights-holder with her own agency. Days before her death, she chose to put her own name to a demand for justice. 


For O7J, that is the connection between representing an individual victim and seeking systemic change: to listen to what victims themselves demand, to act on the authority they entrust to us, and to carry that pursuit of justice forward. 

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