Jordan's Radio Balad honours Gaza's female martyrs with special International Women's Day broadcast

Jordan's Radio Al-Balad broadcast a special show to honour Palestinian women killed in Gaza since 7 October, to mark International Women's Day (IWD) which takes place on Friday.

The Amman-based community station broadcast a live reading titled #WeAreNotNumbers from 9am until 5pm when the names of all the women martyrs in Gaza were read out.

The initiative is planned to precede International Women's Day, which is held annually on 8 March, as Israel's unprecedented bombing campaign of the enclave continues.

More than 30,800 Palestinians have been killed and 72,298 injured, while much of the strip has been left uninhabitable, creating an unprecedented humanitarian crisis, a looming famine, and flattened countless hospitals and homes. Around two-thirds of the deaths are estimated to be women and children. 

At least 8,150 women have been killed in the assault on the enclave, according to the Gaza ministry of health, while many more missing under the rubble.

Prominent political, artistic, social, and sporting figures will read out the names of the victims to "honour the memories of the female martyrs there" in light of "the current events and ongoing war in Gaza, and the genocide that civilians are being subjected to". 

The Director General of Jordan's Community Media Network, Daoud Kuttab, said in a statement the idea of the initiative came "within the policy of humanising the media, which focuses on the need for the media to convey the human side".

"We must give space to the human story and narrative of each martyr, and not simply deal with them as numbers. Every martyr had a story, family, dreams, and details that were destroyed by the unprecedented brutality practiced by the occupation against children, women, and civilians," he added.

Radio Al-Balad's Director, Etaf Roudan, said the initiative aimed at emphasising two things: one was the humanitarian role played by the media, particularly community media, which doesn't focus on news as much as on "the details of people's lives, especially of victims of wars and crises". 

The second aim was to highlight this focus at a time when the world was celebrating International Women's Day.

"While the women of Palestine can't find a glimmer of hope [they deserve to be] treated as human beings, with the right to be protected and live in freedom and dignity with their families and children," Roudan said.