The shocking human cost that occupation has taken on Palestinian women is laid bare in research published today. Combining research, extensive surveys, and first-hand testimonies from over 40 Palestinian women, Palestinian Women: The Disproportionate Impact of The Israeli Occupation provides new insight into the gendered experience of occupation, looking into four issues in particular:

• women refugees
• the impact of residency revocation on Palestinian women in Jerusalem
• the experience of women prisoners
• Gazans’ access to health

Co-authored by four Palestinian NGOs – the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH), Palestinian Working Woman Society for Development (PWWSD), the Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling (WCLAC), and Women Media and Development (TAM), the report includes detailed findings that demonstrate how the oppression occupation has permeated women’s daily lives, and the particular impact is has had on women in Palestinian refugee camps, Palestinian women living in Jerusalem, women prisoners, and residents of Gaza who require health services.

The impact on refugee women

Researchers spoke to 500 Palestinian refugee women from 12 Palestinian camps (7 in the West Bank, 5 in Gaza). Their findings included the following:

• A third of women surveyed had been directly exposed to physical assault by Israeli Occupation Forces. 9% had been exposed to threats of being attacked by police dogs during Israeli night raids on their homes.
• Over a third (37%) of respondents had been exposed to detention or interrogation, while 38% said that they or members of their households had been exposed to verbal abuse during Israeli army raids, at checkpoints or while visiting religious places.
• Nearly a quarter (24%) were forced to live in shelters or with extended family. 22% were forced to live under unhealthy conditions. 13% stated that the female and male members of their families were separated as a result of having to live in shelters.
• More than one in five (21%) had been exposed to beatings or tear gas at Israeli checkpoints while they were pregnant. 4% reported that they aborted or gave birth at Israeli checkpoints.
• The majority (64%- 321 cases) had been unable to visit religious or recreational places because of Occupation restrictions.

Jerusalem: Residency Revocation and Family Reunification

According to official figures, 14,595 Palestinians from East Jerusalem had their residency status revoked between 1967 and the end of 2016.

Through residency revocations, Israel has separated husbands from wives, parents from children, and extended families from one another, causing traumatic complications for women attempting to remain with their families in both Jerusalem and the West Bank.

This leads to traumatic fears of separation from children for mothers and an entrenching of patriarchal practices across society. Palestinian women living in Jerusalem lose residency rights if they get divorced or their husbands remarry. Limiting their access to justice, female victims of domestic violence fear reporting abuse to authorities in case they are forcibly transferred away from their children.

Women prisoners

Since the beginning of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine in 1967, approximately 10,000 Palestinian women have been arrested and detained by Israeli military forces. According to the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs’ 2017 annual report, 1,467 children were arrested last year.

Our researchers spoke to prisoners who experienced physical and psychological torture at arrest and imprisonment, and traumatic, gendered treatment, including:

• Women denied access to menstrual products while detained
• A woman arrested while pregnant who gave birth while chained to a prison hospital bed
• Ex-prisoners who report being subjected to rape and death threats during interrogation, including a girl in of 15-years old threatened with rape
• Women who were subjected to frequent forced and violent strip searches
• A prisoner who reported toothache, only to have the wrong tooth removed

Access to Health in Gaza

Israel exercises strict control Gaza’s borders, a policy of ‘actual authority’, constituting continued occupation, despite the withdrawal of its permanent presence. This control in particular affects those who need medical treatment outside of Gaza’s struggling health system, who require permission to leave. The report shows that the rate of approval applications is falling year-by-year:

• 92.5% of applications were successful in 2012
• 88.7% in 2013
• 82.4% in 2014
• 77.5% in 2015
• 62.1% in 2016

Of the 26,282 permit applications submitted by patients aiming to exit through Erez in 2016, 8,242 (31.4%) were delayed. Many applicants received no response from border authorities, even after lawyers filed formal applications on their behalf. These delays regularly extend months and years beyond medical appointments, worsening already life-threatening diseases and in some cases resulting in death.

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Palestinian Women – The Disproportionate Impact of the Israeli Occupation

Women represent half of the Palestinian population

The qualitative base of the structure of the population in Palestine the sex ratio stood at 103.3, which means that there are 103 males for every 100 females

The percentage of female-headed households

The percentage of female-headed households in Palestine was 10.6% in 2017, 11.2% in the West Bank and 9.5% in Gaza Strip.

fifth of the persons in Palestine got married at an early age (less than 18 years) in 2016

Early marriage reached to 20.5% among females and 1.0% among males of the total married population in Palestine; the rate was 19.9% out of the total married population in West Bank and 21.6% out of the total married population in Gaza Strip end 2016.

The highest rate of female early marriage in the West Bank was in Hebron 36.8%, and the lowest was in Jericho and the Jordan Valley 1.2% out of the total number of women marriage below 18 years in the West Bank. In Gaza Strip, the highest rate of early female marriage was 42.1% in Gaza Governorate, while the lowest rate was in Dier Al-Balah 7.1% out of the total number of women marriage below 18 years in Gaza Strip.

A continued rise in literacy among women

Despite the rise in literacy rates among females over the last decade, the gap is still in favor of males by 3.0%, female literacy rates was 95.6% compared to 98.6% for male literacy in the year 2017.

Rise in enrollment rate of females in high schools compared to males

Data showed that male enrollment in high schools was 60.5%, compared to female enrollment which was 80.4% for the year 2016-2017.

A gap in the participation rate and average daily wages between men and women

The female participation rate in the labor force was 19.0% of the total female population at work age in 2017, compared to 10.3% in 2001, while the male participation rate was 71.2% in 2017. There was also a pay gap in the average daily wages between males and females; the average daily wage for females was NIS 84.6 compared to NIS 119.6 for males.

Around half of the women are unemployed

The unemployment rate among women participated in the labor force was 47.4% compared to 22.3% for participated males. 65.8% of youth females aged of (15-29 years) were unemployed. While the unemployment rate among women with 13 school years and above represents 53.8% of women in this group.

Palestinian Women in Public Life

In 2017; 21.2% of the members of the local councils are females in the West Bank while 78.8% were males.

In 2016, 82.7% of judges were male, compared to 17.3% female, while 66.6% of registered lawyers were male, compared to 33.4% female and 82.0% of members of the public prosecution staff were male, compared to 18.0% female. Furthermore, Palestinian female ambassadors represented 5.8% compared to 94.2% male. Females represented 32.3% of registered engineers with the Union of Engineers while male represented 67.7%. On the other hand, in 2016, 12.4% of members of student councils in West Bank universities were females, compared to 87.6% males.

In the public sector, females represented 42.7% of civil servants, compared to 57.3% male civil servant. In the public civil sector, female Director Generals represented 11.3% of the total director generals, compared to 88.7% males in the same post.

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Executive summary

All children in contact with judicial systems should be treated with dignity and respect at all times. For several years, national lawyers, human rights organizations, United Nations experts and treaty bodies have been publishing reports of illtreatment of children who come in contact with the Israeli military detention system.

Following an increasing number of allegations of ill-treatment of children in military detention, UNICEF has conducted a review of practices related to children who come into contact with the military detention system, from apprehension, to court proceedings and outcome.

The review further considers whether the military detention system is in conformity with the Convention on the Rights of the Child as well as the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Following an overview of policies and norms related to the prohibition of ill-treatment in international law, the paper presents the structure and operation of the Israeli military detention system, including the legal framework, establishment of a juvenile military court, age of criminal responsibility and penalties under military law. The paper also reviews the legal safeguards in place against ill-treatment under military law and discusses their conformity with the norms, guarantees and safeguards found in international law. Subsequently, the treatment of children in the military detention system is presented, following the passage of children through the system.

This paper is a result of this review and analysis of practices. It concludes that the ill-treatment of children who come in contact with the military detention system appears to be widespread, systematic and institutionalized throughout the process, from the moment of arrest until the child’s prosecution and eventual conviction and sentencing.

It is understood that in no other country are children systematically tried by juvenile military courts that, by definition, fall short of providing the necessary guarantees to ensure respect for their rights. All children prosecuted for offences they allegedly committed should be treated in accordance with international juvenile justice standards, which provide them with special protection. Most of these protections are enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The paper concludes with 38 specific recommendations grouped under 14 broad headings designed to improve the protection of children in line with the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other international laws, norms and standards.

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The Palestinian economy is facing serious risks, with a slowdown in growth and rise in unemployment in both Gaza and the West Bank. During 2008–10, the West Bank’s real GDP grew by an annual average rate of 9 percent, reflecting sound economic management and reforms supported by donor aid, and an easing of Israeli internal barriers. However, growth declined to 5 percent in 2011 and the first quarter of 2012, while unemployment rose to 19 percent in the first half of 2012 from 16 percent in the same period last year. The economic slowdown reflects continued fiscal retrenchment combined with severe financing difficulties, declining donor aid especially from regional donors, and slower easing of restrictions on movement and access. In Gaza, after a rebound in its real output by over 20 percent on average in 2010–11 following the easing of tight restrictions, growth has declined to 6 percent in the first quarter of 2012, and unemployment has risen to 30 percent from 28 percent in the same period last year. Looking ahead, with persisting restrictions, financing difficulties with aid shortfalls, and stalemate in the peace process, there is a high risk of a continued economic slowdown, a rise in unemployment, and social upheaval.

The Palestinian Authority (PA)’s severe financing difficulties in 2011 and so far in 2012 have led to a substantial rise in domestic payment arrears and debt to commercial banks. Steady institution-building and prudent fiscal management by the PA during 2008–10 enabled a significant improvement in the quality of spending and a sharp reduction in recurrent budgetary aid from $1.8 billion to $1.1 billion. However, in 2011 and so far in 2012, donor aid for recurrent spending and development projects has been lower than needed to finance the already tight budgets. The consequent liquidity difficulties have been compounded by shortfalls in revenue in the context of a decline in economic growth and slower-than-expected implementation of clearance and domestic tax administration measures, as well as higher pension payments. Domestic payment arrears, including to the private sector and public pension fund, are estimated to have risen by about $0.3 billion in the first half of 2012. The stock of government debt to domestic banks has increased to $1.2 billion (12 percent of GDP) at end-June 2012 from $1.0 billion at end-2010.

Given the high risk of continued aid shortfalls, it is important for the PA to promptly implement a contingency plan to cover the financing gap, which as of mid-September is projected at $0.4 billion for 2012. The PA already announced in mid-August a freeze in new public sector employment and promotions for the remainder of the year. The contingency plan should complement these measures by a reduction in the cost of living adjustment for public sector employees. Non-wage expenditures should be carefully prioritized, making full use of the cash management system, to ensure that in case of continued aid shortfalls non-essential expenditures take the brunt of the cuts. Any measures to alleviate the impact of the September fuel price increases should be offset by cuts in other non-essential spending, given the severe financing constraint. Development projects should only be implemented if there are matching funds from donors, to prevent the diversion of aid away from essential recurrent spending. While domestic revenue measures are unlikely to

start bearing fruit before the end of the year, nevertheless it is important to press ahead with the prompt implementation of the IMF technical assistance recommendations to improve tax administration, notably through enhancing compliance and widening the tax base.

Joint PA-Government of Israel (GoI) measures to raise clearance revenue should be implemented promptly to support the fiscal adjustment efforts. Given that clearance revenue, which is collected by the GoI on the PA’s behalf, represents 70 percent of the PA’s total tax revenue, the PA-GoI understanding reached in July 2012 to enhance the efficiency of the clearance revenue mechanism through joint PA-GoI measures has the potential to raise budgetary revenue and reduce the PA’s reliance on aid over time. To ensure a sustainable rise in the Palestinian economic and revenue base, economic cooperation should be broadened to include an easing of restrictions on movement and access.

Along with its efforts to address the immediate financing difficulties, it is important for the PA to employ its enhanced institutional capacity to press ahead with measures to further raise public sector efficiency and phase out reliance on recurrent aid. As set out in the IMF staff reports for the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee meetings in 2011, IMF staff considers that the PA is able to conduct the sound economic policies expected of a future Palestinian state, given its solid track record of reforms and institution building. A milestone reached in April 2012 was the WBG’s subscription to the IMF’s Special Dissemination Standards (SDDS). This is the outcome of the PA’s efforts to enhance the quality and transparency of economic and financial statistics, which compare favorably with those of IMF member countries that maintain high data management and dissemination standards. It is essential that the PA continues to build on its track record by taking measures toward comprehensive pension and civil service reforms, further strengthening the social safety net, completing the commercialization of electricity distribution, and enhancing the legal and regulatory framework facing businesses.

Additional aid is essential to sustain orderly reforms and fiscal adjustment. The delays in wage payments have already raised social tensions, and there is an increased public anxiety that, even with additional austerity measures by the PA, much needed social spending would be cut and wage payments delayed. It is thus critical that the PA’s efforts be complemented by the prompt disbursement of additional aid to help cover the 2012 financing gap. It is also important for the PA and donors to work closely to develop a donor coordination framework to enhance the predictability of aid, especially from regional donors.

To stem the risks of a continued economic slowdown, a rise in unemployment, and a deepening fiscal crisis—which are bound to fuel social upheaval—urgent and concerted actions are needed by the PA, the GoI, and the international community. The PA should do its utmost to prudently manage the current fiscal crisis and continue to lay the foundation for sustainable growth and financial self-reliance. However, the economic and financial base that allows the PA to operate in a sustainable manner and build institutions, and its ability to ensure broad-based public support for its reforms, would be seriously eroded without

sustained donor aid, including for public investment, and without an easing of Israeli controls on the WBG’s external trade and access to the West Bank’s Area C. The easing of these controls would relax a key constraint on private sector growth and employment, raise the WBG’s economic and budgetary revenue potential, and help ensure a sustained rise in Palestinians’ living standards.

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Introduction

Over the duration of the ‘peace process’ the number of Israelis living beyond the Green Line has tripled from about 200,000 in 1990 to well above 650,000 today. Throughout this Israeli expansion into Palestinian territory the usurpation of Palestinian resources continues to be commonplace. However, in recent years the phenomenon of Israeli settler violence against Palestinian civilians has become a primary concern for the safety and security of Palestinian livelihood. While Israeli settler violence is not new, the extent and frequency with which it is perpetrated today is. This undeniable trend, which has been evident for several years now, seems to be the new normal. For this reason, this study aims to better understand where and how settler violence is happening and what causes it in an effort to understand how best to stop it.

Executive Summary

• Israeli settler violence presents a direct and consistent threat to Palestinian civilians and their property in the occupied West Bank and instances of Israeli settler violence are on the rise.

• From 2010 to 2011 there was a 39 percent increase in incidents of Israel Settler violence. In the five year period from 2007 through 2011 there has been a 315 percent increase. Conversely, over the same 5-year period, there has been a 95 percent decrease in Palestinian violence in the West Bank.

• There is a noticeable shift in the proportion of violence as it occurs geographically in the West Bank. In the past, the southern part of the West Bank saw the largest number of instances but in recent years the northern part of the West Bank is becoming increasingly targeted and has overtaken the southern part of the West Bank in terms of number of attacks.

• The period of the olive harvest annually brings a peak in violent settler activity. The presence of Palestinian civilians in olive groves, where they are easy targets for unrestrained and violent Israeli settlers, is the main reason why this occurs on an annual basis.

• There is a noticeable increase in the frequency and proportion of arson attacks employed by violent settlers. This suggests that violent settlers are increasingly choosing this method of violence and will continue to do so. The percentage of arson among all attack types in 2005 was 6 percent and has risen to 11 percent in 2011.

• While minimal variation in Israeli settler violence over time can be explained as a response to Israeli state actions against settlements, like the dismantlement of outposts, the vast majority of Israeli settler violence is not responsorial but rather structural and symptomatic of occupation.

• Over 90 percent of all Palestinian villages which have experienced multiple instances of Israeli settler violence are in areas which fall under Israeli security jurisdiction.

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Executive summary:

With no agreement on a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in sight, one-state dynamics are gaining momentum – a development that will be difficult to reverse or even contain. In the medium and long term, no one will benefit from such a development. Indeed, all might lose: an ugly one-state dynamic has no happy ending, and such a solution is rejected by Palestinians and Israelis alike. Instead, the emerging one-state reality increases the potential for various kinds of conflicts and contradictory impulses. The international community too finds itself unprepared and perhaps unwilling to confront this emerging reality, but in doing so it imperils the prospects for peace in the region – the exact thing it seeks to promote.

While strong majorities of Palestinians and Israelis support the two-state solution, they find themselves living with a one-state reality the Israelis comfortably, the Palestinians with a great deal of discomfort. The international community defines the two-state solution as a cornerstone of its Middle East policy, but it too contributes to sustaining the one-state reality by failing to challenge Israeli settlement policy. Palestinians oppose a resort to violence as a means of increasing the costs of occupation; they support non-violence, but take no part in it; and they support Fatah-Hamas reconciliation, but complain very little while disunity entrenches itself. They recognize fully that the two-state solution is dead or dying, but refuse to lend support to dissolving the Palestinian Authority (PA) or to see a one-state solution as an alternative worth fighting for. They support going to the United Nations for statehood, but turn a blind eye to the PA’s foot dragging. Israelis, on the other hand, worry little about the emerging reality, as other things, such as Iran, top their agenda. A right-wing government views progress with the Palestinians as a threat to its stability.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

a. The September 2011 meeting of the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee coincides with the completion the Palestinian Authority’s ambitious two-year program “Palestine: Ending the Occupation, Establishing the State”, presented on August 25, 2009. There has been substantial progress in implementing the program’s goals and policies, centering on the objective of building strong state institutions. However, the onset of an acute fiscal crisis, accompanied by declining economic growth, may undermine the promise of these institution-building achievements.

b. In areas where government effectiveness matters most – security and justice; revenue and expenditure management; economic development; and service delivery – Palestinian public institutions compare favorably to other countries in the region and beyond. These institutions have played a crucial role in enabling the positive economic growth in the West Bank and Gaza in recent years.

c. Though significant, this growth has been unsustainable, driven primarily by donor aid rather than a rebounding private sector, which remains stifled by Israeli restrictions on access to natural resources and markets. Under these conditions, lower-than-expected aid flows in the first half of 2011 had an immediate impact on the Palestinian economy. Real GDP growth, steadily increasing in 2009-2010 and previously projected to reach 9 percent in 2011, is now expected to be 7 percent. The shortfall in external financial support in the first half of 2011 has also contributed to the current fiscal crisis facing the Palestinian Authority.

d. The situation underscores the interdependence of institution-building and sustainable economic growth in laying the economic underpinnings of a future state. To date, the Palestinian Authority has continued to implement its reform agenda, but a protracted fiscal crisis risks jeopardizing the gains in institution-building made painstakingly over the past years.

e. Ultimately, in order for the Palestinian Authority to sustain the reform momentum and its achievements in institution-building, remaining Israeli restrictions must be lifted. The resulting revival of the private sector can be expected to grow the tax base and gradually reduce dependence on external assistance. Until then, however, West Bank and Gaza will remain vulnerable to reductions in aid flow, and these will need to be managed carefully.

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Introduction

Throughout history, men have possessed the right to make decisions in all public and private aspects of life. Women’s participation in the decisionmaking process has been limited, within the context of a patriarchal system that imposes itself at all levels. In the Arab world, traditional patriarchy is built upon a hierarchy of roles and authorities and is represented in the power of the old over the young, men over women, the rich over the poor, and the majority over minorities.

Since the outcome of societal decisions, at all levels, reflects the existing power distribution, policy decisions cannot be neutral. Contrary to current notions of policies being “gender-blind,” it is clear that these policies, actually, discriminate against women. They work directly and indirectly to maintain the status quo of unbalanced relations within the objective reality, as reflected in economic, political, and social indicators.

These policies are woven into the dominant culture. As they reinforce existing social roles within the culture, these policies operate under the pretext of being the means for maintaining the balance, survival, and continuity of society. Hence, discrimination, particularly regarding decisionmaking, becomes an essential part of an integrated culture that must protect itself by keeping women in their “natural place” within the social reality. Within this mix, where the patriarchal intersects with the economic, the institutional and the cultural, “social religiosity” plays a decisive role in rationalizing and normalizing the process of discrimination against women, and in providing cognitive and mental justifications for the discriminatory reality.

Under this system, men gain free reign in making decisions. They do that, at all levels, by virtue of what society knows to be right, religious and lawful, and in protection by the existing social organization. Meanwhile, men use various means for co-opting women at times or subjugating them by direct and societal force at other times.

Moreover, the socially-rooted conceptualizations of differences in women’s and men’s sexualities and their biological nature are so frequently evoked to the extent that they become part and parcel of the individual and collective consciousness. In this regard, the “natural role” of women is one of the most deeply rooted interventions at the conscious and unconscious levels. Consequently, women’s fulfillment of their “natural role” associated with the reproductive process becomes compulsory and coercive. In the end, this leads to women’s lives becoming regulated through the sharia, constitutions, laws, and predominant social norms, in ways that far exceed what applies to men.

This gives men the power and legitimacy to control women (as well as their bodies and minds) in all aspects of life. This also works on normalizing discrimination, especially within the realm of family law. By extension, this equally works on normalizing decisions related to political, economic, and social policies.

Moreover, the dominant system also provides a “blank check” for men in terms of personal liberties. At the same time, the system provides tools for controlling women and keeping them in their “natural place.” The dominant system sustains that by curbing women’s impulses, instincts, and sexual desires and by transferring these sexual aspects of women to the favor of men—at home and in the privacy of sex. These are assumptions which are predominant indeed in mainstream culture—a culture that calls on the community to do everything possible to rid women of “the devil therein.” Consequently, these assumptions are the hidden forces behind calls for forsaking women’s rights and behind allowing men to make decisions on women’s behalf—always framed in the interest of maintaining the status quo and “collective good of society.”

Although these dynamics are not always played at a direct and conscious level, nonetheless they are rooted in the culture and are instilled in the consciousness of community members. They become an outcome of mainstream cultural understanding of class, gender and educational relations.

Moreover, in light of the absolute and relative absence of women’s participation in decision-making positions, it is a consequence that institutions and organizations do not take women’s lives and needs into account. As such, women are unable to hold decision-makers accountable. These institutions, thus, continue to produce policies against the rights of women, leading to an increase in the gap between women and men.

Within the aforementioned contextualized realities, the greatest challenge is to define a conceptual framework and reach an analysis that clarifies the depth of the problem beyond the dominant language and concepts in the literature of the international organizations with regard to gender, albeit without ignoring this literature. This analysis should address the nature of the vicious circle of dual deprivation surrounding women’s limited participation in decision-making on the one hand and their overall limited access to decision-makers (who are usually men) on the other hand—an access that would have enabled women to hold institutions accountable to their needs and demands. This “dual deprivation” not only separates women from the decision-making process, even on issues directly impacting their lives, but also deprives them of the ability to act as agents of social change, in light of their absence from decision-making positions.

Accordingly, the deprivation of decision-making must be extended to a set of binaries, which are in fact binaries with an extended space in between. Within this space interactions are possible and therefore these binaries have not reached polarization. This interactive process, whose outcome does not always equal to a zero-sum game, does not always have women come as losers. The processes, as well as the outcome, reflect a negotiated, competitive relation within a space that is limited by contextual imperatives. The deprivation duality is also related to competing and interactive dualities: public-private spheres, objective-subjective realities, nature-nurture debate, views of men sexuality-women sexuality, and gender-class analyses. These dualities and their interactions may contribute to reaching an in-depth analysis of the status of women and men with regard to decision- making in Arab societies.

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This story begins as a clandestine affair of espionage marked by daring, adventurism, improvisation and imagination as embedded in the official Israeli narrative. In the 1940s, squads of young scouts from the Haganah, the pre-state army and forerunner of the Israel Defense Forces, collected information about the Arab towns and villages in Palestine for intelligence purposes: in preparation for a future conflict and as part of a more general project of creating files of target sites.

The information was usually collected under the guise of a nature lesson aimed at getting to know the country, or for hikes that were common in that period. The scouts systematically built up a database of geographical, topographical and planning information about the villages, which included detailed descriptions of roads, neighborhoods, houses, public buildings, objects, wells, caves, wadis and so forth.

Overall, this intelligence effort was known as the "village files" project, referring to the fact that most of the sites about which information was collected were the Arab villages that existed in Palestine before 1948. The scouts' work included perspective sketches, maps, drawings and photographs of each village and its surroundings. The maps used by the scouts were collected in a secret base on Mapu Street in Tel Aviv, located in a cellar that was given the cover name of the "office of the engineer Meir Rabinowitz" and code-named "the roof."

Detailed information about the villages was meticulously catalogued and organized in files by the planning bureau of the Haganah general staff and held in the organization's territorial commands around the country. Greater boldness and courage were required when the Haganah commanders decided to photograph the villages from the air in order to broaden the information that existed in the files. Sophisticated ruses were used to deceive the British authorities, who forbade such activity. The villages were photographed under the guise of the activities of a flying club or romantic aerial excursions; the camera and negatives were hidden in and around the plane. Innovative means were developed to collect information secretly. Women played a significant role in this process, and one of them became, as far as is known, the first female aerial photographer of the Yishuv, or Jewish community of Palestine.

Personnel from Shai, the Haganah's information service, and afterward Arab informers as well, collected detailed and extensive information - historical, social, economic, demographic, educational, agricultural, military, architectural, planning and more - about the villages from the beginning of the 1940s. Based on this information, textual surveys of the Arab settlements were compiled. Over the years, many such surveys were conducted, covering the country thoroughly.

Yet the products of this historical national project also bear the potential to create an alternative narrative today. They can challenge official history - based on original, official materials. Doing this also requires resilience and boldness, but of a very different kind than what was needed back then.

The official version

Most of those involved in the village files story are no longer alive. I interviewed some of them a few years ago as part of the research for a book dealing with the origins of military photography in Israel and the methods used by the pre-state Jewish forces and by their successors in Israel's army to collect information about the Palestinians. In addition, the majority of those who took part in the project left detailed testimonies in books and archives. However, due to space limitations only a few of the names will be mentioned here.

According to Yitzhak Shefar (who later changed his name to Eran ), who was the chief instructor of the Haganah field corps in Tel Aviv and a graduate of a scouts officers course, the idea of creating village files was conceived by a number of people simultaneously, both in the general staff and at the field operations level.

In 1942, Shmuel Zalman Zelikson (Ziama Dibon ) of the planning bureau of the Haganah general staff, who had previously commanded the field corps in the Jerusalem area, came up with the idea of preparing files about the Arab villages with which a military clash was deemed likely. Concurrently, Zerubavel Vermel (Arbel ), from Kibbutz Maoz Haim, used scout squads from the field corps to collect information about villages in the areas of Mount Gilboa, the Jordan River and the Arab town of Beisan (Beit She'an ), and started to organize the material in files.

Vermel said in testimony he gave later, "I told myself that if we find ourselves in a war, we will have to conquer these villages ... But did we know anything about them? Nothing, it turned out." The files were shown to Yigael Sukenik (Yadin ), a senior member of the planning bureau (and later IDF chief of staff ). He organized a meeting between Zelikson and Vermel, whose cooperation laid the foundation for ramified and orderly intelligence work.

After a model was devised for the structure of the files, the Haganah conducted a course for scouts, held at Shfeya youth village near Haifa. Maj. Gen. (res. ) Moshe Gornitzky (Goren ), a graduate of the first Haganah course for intelligence officers (and later chief scouts officer in the general staff ), described how the participants sat on a hillside above Fureidis, one of four villages chosen as examples in the course, and sketched the landscape.

Intended for operational purposes, the village files consisted mostly of topographical, geographical, planning and physical elements - information about the locale's main structures, access roads, water sources and so on. In 1945, the scouts started to photograph the villages, as photographs were considered an "objective" source of reliable, accurate information. Shefar, an amateur photographer, and Yisrael Spector, a Haganah member and a photographer, urged the use of photos to enhance the files. According to Shefar, in a book he published in 1994, because the reconnaissance missions were undertaken under cover of excursions, either while scouts were passing through the village or its outskirts, taking pictures would be considered "natural."

Sukenik, at the time the Haganah planning officer in the Tel Aviv district, was persuaded. A number of cameras were purchased. Henceforth, the village files would be based mainly on photography. The scouts generally avoided including themselves in the photographs, and their work was of a clandestine character.

"In some cases, the scouts 'were lent' a few female 'hikers' to embellish the cover story," related Shefar. According to the manual prepared for the photographer-scouts, "If you are unable to hide the act of photography, 'cover' it by taking pictures of your friends or of the local people. In the former case, ensure that your friends do not appear [in focus] in the photo, not even from the back ... If, nevertheless, people do appear in the picture (as a result of carelessness ), blur them on the negative."

Pinhas Aptekmann (Yoeli ), the head of the maps division, who took part in planning the scouts course (and was later president of the Israel Society of Cartography), said in testimony that he gave to staff at the Archives of the History of the Haganah about the village files project, in 1973: "The kuntz [trick] was to pose the scouts so that the 'show' would be perfect, but they would not appear in the photo, for fear that if the file was seized the scouts would be identified. There was no choice but to delete them from the photographs."

At the end of 1945, Gornitzky and Shefar initiated the effort to photograph the Arab villages and sites of operational importance from the air, in order to collect "contingency information under convenient conditions for a time of battle." Gornitzky recalled that Sukenik, who was by then head of planning in the general staff, was invited for a test flight, along with Ari Glass, from Kibbutz Yagur, who had been an aerial photographer in the German Army in World War I, and Emanuel Zuckerberg (Zur ), a pilot in the Jewish Agency's Aviron company. The results proved satisfactory, and systematic, organized flights began.

To photograph the target sites without arousing suspicion, the pilots pretended to be members of the Aviron flying club. At first the flights assumed a romantic cast. A couple would come to the airfield, said Shefar, "wearing Shabbat clothes, as befit such occasions. The woman always carried a large enough handbag to hold the camera and the films. Later, another cover was added: an asthmatic child, who had been instructed by the doctor to fly high in the air!"

The "asthmatic" was Nimrod, the son of Galila Plotkin; he now lives in the United States. Plotkin herself, who is 93, is the daughter of Baruch Katinka, a weapons instructor in the Haganah, who also engaged in arms purchases and was the engineer who built the YMCA building in West Jerusalem. Plotkin attended a commanders course at the age of 15, trained guards and commanded outposts. She can also be considered the first female aerial photographer in the Yishuv, the pre-state Jewish community.

"At first I accompanied them as a cover, and afterward I started to photograph myself," she said in her testimony. "It was Gershon, my husband, who originated this. We used to take our son, who was a year and a half old ... That was excellent camouflage. I hid the camera in our son's bag, between his diapers and the rest of the equipment, and fortunately he would nod off as soon as we took off and sleep soundly."

Plotkin was not worried about the danger of the photographic missions. "We did the calculation for the altitude for taking the photographs in the office, and when the pilot announced that we were at the right altitude, I would stick my head out the window and take pictures. But it was absolute torture, because my hair got tangled up by the wind. Absurd as it may sound, it was really horrible, until I got hold of pilot's headgear."

The flying club

By this time, a flight squadron of the Palmach, the Haganah's elite strike force, was already fully formed and organized. It was decided to entrust the squadron with the mission of taking the aerial photographs. Since the pilots were already registered as members of the flying club, it was only natural for them to want to chalk up flying time. In the Palmach they were known as the "airborne department," but for external consumption they were presented as "the flying club of the Aviron company." At first they used large bellows cameras, but switched to small Leica because of the need to reload frequently.

To train pilots for photographic missions, Shefar established the School for Aerial Photographers from the Underground. The "school" was located in the one-room apartment that he shared with his wife, Hassia.

"In the middle of the room," he recalls, "there was a table that was covered by a blanket. On the blanket there was a chair. There were two training props: the camera and ... a box of matches attached to a string. On the floor, perpendicular to the side of the table, a chalk line was drawn. The apprentice sat on the chair. I pulled the matchbox and the apprentice had to press the button the moment the matchbox crossed the line ... After accomplishing this feat several times in succession, he was awarded the title of 'authorized aerial photographer.' Up to this point things were more or less logical. What was less logical was [the fact] that the pilots actually brought back good, even excellent photographs."

The pilots hid the films in the Aviron hangar in Ramle, and on their body in order to remove them from the hangar. To avoid having to take the camera in and out, they hid it in a cache in Ramle. When the British intensified their investigation of what they saw as suspicious Haganah operations, the pilots flew over a designated spot near the Palmach's tent camp at Kibbutz Na'an and dropped the film from the plane before going on to land in Ramle. The films were hidden in a small pocket in bags sewn in Na'an, which were filled with sand and marked with a colored tail to make it easier to find them.

Shefar: "That was actually the conventional mode of air-surface communication in the British Army before the development of the wireless. Flying over Na'an on the way to landing in Ramle did not create suspicion. We landed with an empty camera, which we then hid in the cache. We also had a cache in the plane itself, if there was concern that for some reason we would not be able to get the camera into the hangar immediately upon landing ... We gave the impression of being a seemingly innocent flying club, but they [the British] didn't really buy the story. They collected information about us, but they never found a concrete reason to put us on trial or at least to terminate our activity. This situation was our daily lot, but when all is said and done they never found a film or a camera. We were clean.

"There was constant surveillance," he continued, "with searches and interrogations, and for our part we upgraded the caches, the deceptions and the cover stories. For example, a 'special navigation training flight' or a 'special teaching flight' - things that were meant to explain all kinds of strange loops and excursions in the air, which we did in order to take pictures. Occasionally we also flew over Jewish settlements in order to mislead the British. We did not always drop the films from the plane over Na'an.

"Sometimes, for various reasons, we hid them in the cache on the plane and dropped them on the next flight, or we had a few pilots stay until late evening, supposedly for the maintenance of the planes, because after the special detectives went for beer and rest it was easier to remove things. Sometimes the fellow with the film left the base on an Arab bus, which was less suspect. He would take the film to Jaffa, then to Tel Aviv, then to Rehovot and make his way from there to Na'an on foot! All these evasive maneuvers to cover our tracks were logical."

Lost information

Many of the village files have been lost; only a few dozen remain in the various archives. However, a large number of aerial photographs exist, along with many textual surveys of the Arab settlements. An example is a report from September 1943 about the village of Rantiya (in the Jaffa sub-district ), which would be conquered five years later by the IDF in Operation Dani, when its residents were uprooted; three Jewish communities - Mazor, Nofekh and Rinnatya - were established on its land.

According to the survey, Rantiya was founded 600 years ago and lay about 1.5 kilometers east of the Lod-Petah Tikva road and the same distance west of the railway line. The village had one well from which local women carried water to the houses; its pump was built by the British government, which managed the well. There were three types of structures in the village: of cement and reinforced concrete, of wood and tiles, and of bricks and mortar (the minority ). The village was surrounded by vineyards. A wadi running nearby from east to west reached the village of Al-Yahudiya (where the Israeli town of Yahud was afterward built, though originally David Ben-Gurion wanted to raze the village ). Rantiya had an area of 4,500 dunams (1,125 acres ), of which 550 dunams were planted with citrus trees and 100 dunams with grape vines and olive trees. Various types of grains were grown on the rest of the land. "The harvest is generally very good," according to the information in the file. Of the 650 residents, some 140 were property owners, but none were effendis. There were two clans, which maintained "satisfactory" relations. The village had only one simple store and did not have a cafe. There was also one mosque, "in good condition and very clean," and a school in which one teacher taught between 40 and 50 children. There were 150 laborers in Rantiya, but no clerks working in the service of the British administration. During the period of the Arab Revolt, 1936-1939, some of the farm work stopped, and one person was killed on the Ras al-Ein road. The British authorities detonated a few buildings.

Useful intelligence

Shimri Salomon, the person in charge of the Haganah archives in Tel Aviv, researched the project of the surveys of the Arab villages and is completing a comprehensive study of the village files.

What was the origin of the village files?

Salomon: "The first initiative was that of Zelikson and Vermel, who understood that the Haganah did not have a database of intelligence information that could be used to plan operations against Arab targets. They certainly did not see the War of Independence looming on the horizon, but did anticipate the possible outbreak of a new wave of 'troubles' [i.e., another Arab revolt] probably more severe than the last one, and thought that the Haganah should deploy for this organizationally and from the intelligence aspect. Shai [the information service] had been operating since 1940, but its personnel were not trained to collect field intelligence and did not engage in that. Zelikson and Vermel concentrated their efforts precisely in that direction; from 1943, the village files project became a central element in the effort to collect operational intelligence. It functioned alongside Shai and supplied what Shai neither tried to supply nor was capable of supplying."

Why the focus on the villages?

"During the Arab Revolt the villages served as bases of departure and places of sanctuary for the gangs - the armed groups that acted against the Mandate authorities and against the Yishuv. The villagers also supplied the gangs with money and food, and many members of the gangs were recruited from the villages. Collecting information about the access roads to the village, the places of hiding in its vicinity, its sources of water, its physical structure and the location of observation points in our direction, and the concentration of this information and of other relevant information in a special file was considered a vital and effective means in case the need should arise to act against the village or against a gang that relied on it."

What is the difference between the surveys of the Arab settlements and the village files?

"The surveys include general and verbal information about the villages. For example, number of inhabitants, the land and its use, the clans, the village mukhtar and also about security issues: how many weapons the residents possessed and of what type, whether the village assisted the gangs during the Troubles and which of the villagers joined the gangs. In the first years of the surveys project, historical information about each village was also compiled: when it was founded, whether it was located on an ancient site and contained antiquities, where the inhabitants came from.

"A great deal could be learned about the village and its inhabitants from this information, but it could not be used to plan military operations, so the need arose to collect operational intelligence. That was the purpose of the village files. It should be noted that in addition to the village files, files were also compiled of Arab neighborhoods in mixed cities, of police stations and of the British military bases in the country. The work of compiling the files on the police stations and the bases was intensified during the period of the armed struggle against the British, from the end of 1945 onward, and some of those files were used to plan operations."

Were the village files used in the conquest of the villages in the war of 1948?

"Testimonies exist, particularly of commanders and soldiers who were involved in the village files project before the War of Independence, stating that in general the files were used and proved useful in the war - for example, in the fighting in the villages around Jerusalem - but I found only a few references to the use of specific files in the war. In my estimation, if files were used, it was mainly in the first half of the war, in what is now usually referred to as the inter-communal war or the civil war - that is, before the invasion of the Arab armies."

What use was made of the files in the war?

"In my estimation, the files were used primarily to plan limited operations against villages, whether for deterrence or for punitive purposes. In certain cases files might have been used to plan the conquest of a village. At the same time, advance surveillance was usually conducted before such operations, in which updated and specific intelligence was collected. After the invasion, when the fighting was against regular armies, the situation changed. The deployment and the activity on the ground were influenced by the change in the character and in the mode of operation of the major enemy the IDF now confronted. There were also other changes which reduced the relevance of the village files. In the second half of 1948, the ability of the IDF's mapping and photographic service to supply the forces with real-time aerial photographs improved apace, and in some cases it was also possible to carry out flights manned by scouts who provided information to the combat units."

What happened to the village files?

"Some of them were apparently destroyed in connection with 'Black Shabbat' [in June 1946, when the British arrested many of the Yishuv's leaders], for fear they would fall into the hands of the British, or they were hidden and not found afterward. Some of them were lost in the storm of the War of Independence. But there is no doubt that quite a few files survived the war. What became of them? I imagine that most of them were cleared out by intelligence officers."

Hilik Libal, who served as an intelligence soldier in IDF Central Command beginning at the end of 1950, told me what happened to the files of the Haganah from the villages that came under his responsibility. This information enables us to conjecture what befell other files, which were stored in the Northern and Southern Commands.

"After the establishment of the state, we continued to draw up files in enemy territory," Libal, now 80, said. "I was a field scout, an air scout and an analyst of aerial photographs in Central Command. We operated mainly in the West Bank. You have to remember that the austerity regime was in effect during the period of my service, and there was a shortage of everything, including cardboard cartons that were used to prepare intelligence files. So I took old cartons that the Haganah had used for the village files before the state's establishment and used them for the new intelligence files. As for the rest of the material that was in the old village files - maps, photographs, sketches and so forth - I burned it.

"For the most part, the files that were burned documented the Arab villages in the Jerusalem Corridor. We also destroyed the negatives of the aerial photographs. We sold the silver iodide they contained to raise money for the unit. Today I regret this. I don't remember if I acted on my own or at the order of my commander. But already at an early stage I realized what a mistake I had made. Therefore, after my discharge from the army I returned to intelligence as a civilian employed by the IDF. At first I served in the computer unit and afterward as a department head in the research division. Until my retirement, I worked hard to document and preserve history for future generations."

Alternative history

In retrospect, the village files (charts, sketches, drawings, maps and ground photographs ), the textual surveys and the aerial photographs sometimes constituted the last testimonies of the Arab villages, just before they were emptied of their inhabitants. They are the last remaining vestiges of the villages before they were destroyed or settled by Jewish immigrants who streamed into the country in its first years; villages which were erased from the Israeli map because of their Arab identity. Concurrently, much Palestinian visual and textual history was lost or fell victim to wars and to the national conflict, leaving behind few remains.

In 1992, the Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi published (in English ) the book "All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948." The product of years of research, the book is a compendium of geographical, demographic, architectural, historical, agricultural and other information about more than 400 Palestinian villages that were destroyed, or in which Israel settled Jewish migrants after 1948, and about the Arab inhabitants who were uprooted from their land and for the most part became refugees. Khalidi's pioneering work made it possible to restore to the public sphere and to public consciousness important information about these settlements.

Paradoxically, the information that was intended to assist the Jewish organizations in their struggle against the Arabs now makes it possible to describe extensive sections of the Arab entity that existed in Palestine before 1948. This information can assist in many areas of research - architectural, agricultural, geographical, social, demographic, historical and others - and can fill in blanks in the missing worldview. Thus, for example, if Khalidi's book contains information about 400 villages, the surveys provide information about 750 settlements (not only those that were destroyed or were populated by Jewish immigrants ). In addition, the village files and the aerial photographs offer real-time visual information, which Khalidi's book does not contain.

The existence of this significant and comprehensive information in Israeli archives has been made known in a few publications, though little research use has been made of it. Much of the material was collected for Israeli military use, is tendentious in character, marked by Zionist national terminology, and reflects the relations between the forces at the time. Nevertheless, recovering the material will make it possible to become acquainted with various aspects of life in the villages, and to restore to the collective lexicon - Israeli and Arab alike - the sights and sites of this land before 1948.

Already in 1973, in the testimony Pinhas Aptekmann gave about the village files project, he said, "These photographs ... are the only remnant left of the villages, as the villages themselves no longer exist."

A contemporary reading of the Israeli archives which includes intelligence material about the pre-1948 Arab community in Palestine, based on a critical approach which neutralizes their tendentiousness, enables us to make sober and conscious use of them. Such a reading does not seek to erase the primary aim and purpose of the village files and the surveys, or to obscure the calamity that befell the Arab towns and villages and their inhabitants. At the same time, it has the power of restoring to the public sphere significant and important information which was lost, but actually exists in the archives, and of completing the missing chapters in Palestinian history.

A national conflict sometimes engenders deceptive, illusory situations and overturns meanings, and the history of one becomes the history of the other. This "new" history puts to the test the inner fortitude, resilience and strength of Israeli society, which is called upon to cope with its past. Is there a body that will be willing to finance the publication of a comprehensive lexicon of the villages, based on this material? Will Israeli society manifest here, too, the same daring that glorifies the pages of the official history?

Dr. Rona Sela is a curator and researcher specializing in the visual aspect of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The first undercover photographer

As far as is known, Israel Netach ‏(Ben-Yitach‏), who was born in Acre in 1918 and died in Ramat Gan in 2008, was the first Jewish undercover photographer, meaning that he posed as an Arab in order to infiltrate the Arab community. When he was 2 years old, economic problems prompted his family to move to Damascus. At the age of 13, he joined his cousin, Shlomo Ben-Yitach, in helping to smuggle Syrian Jews from Damascus to Palestine on behalf of the Jewish Agency. He joined the Haganah in 1935, and in 1947, posing as an Arab himself, with an Arab friend, Netach joined “the Arab gangs that roamed the country. We collected information and details about their types of weapons and about their plans.”

An amateur photographer, Netach bought a Kodak and posed as an Arab press photographer, operating for the Haganah’s information service and using false press cards of the newspapers Filastin and Al-Yum. With his Arab friend he was able to infiltrate “various gangs and for five months document their activity in Hebron, Gush Etzion [a Jewish bloc of settlements north of Hebron] and around Jerusalem. The Haganah used the photographs to acquaint themselves with the events, with the weapons possessed by the enemy and with his methods of operation. At the same time, we distributed the photographs to the Arab press and gave them out as souvenirs to the members of the gangs. The exposure and the publication [of the photos] in the press helped establish our status within the gangs.”

According to Netach, “I took the last photograph of [Palestinian military commander] Abd al-Kader al-Husseini, of the battle for the Kastel, of [Palestinian military commander] Hassan Salameh and others.”