Uprooting and resilience: Women's experiences of war displacement

This phenomenological study aimed to explore the experiences of Israeli women who were displaced from their communities because of the Israel-Hamas/Hezbollah war. Unlike most displacement and refugee studies, we focused on women from Western culture. Understanding their experiences may illuminate new, understudied aspects of women's displacement worldwide.

The data were gathered through semistructured in-depth interviews with 15 women who were evacuated from northern Israel and analyzed in accordance with the phenomenological data analysis approach.

The participants' experiences were organized into three major themes: vulnerability, reemergence, and a spiral movement between them. Experiences of vulnerability and reemergence were presented across personal, family, work, and environment domains.

The results were conceptualized in terms of the resilience cycle and anchoring. We suggest that the women move from the deterioration phase to the growth phase of the resilience cycle, with bidirectional movement between stages. A key factor directing movement between stages was the presence or absence of anchors in the woman's life. Implications for practice and policy, such as reinforcing relevant anchors in the women's lives, recognizing the complex nature of the resilience process, and developing comprehensive long-term assistance for displaced women, are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).