“The financial embargo imposed by the donor countries to the Palestinian Authority is not consistent with their duties and responsibilities in defending human rights. The cessation of support for the health sector does not only lead to economic blockade, but to a health catastrophe of civilians including children, women and people with special needs. Never in the history have the donor countries exercised such blockade on the ill, the weak, and the elderly living under the occupation.”
Human Rights Council of the United Nations ", Paul Hunt," 2007
A report issued by the office of the United Nations for observation of humanitarian situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories indicated that the poverty rate has reached 65%, and the loss of food security rate has reached 34% of the Palestinian families, where the unemployment rate rose from 41.8% to 58.6% between the years 2006 and 2007. A report issued by the a.m. office assured that the number of check points and internal barriers and checkpoints in the West Bank has increased by 40%, where more than half of the apartheid wall of a length of 733 km had been built.
The effect of military barriers and checkpoints on patients:
- The closure of barriers for consecutive days during Jewish Holidays and the so-called security cordon, which causes a threat to their lives.
- Delaying patients on checkpoints; this threatens their lives and aggravates their illness.
- Sometimes the patients are forced to walk and get off the bus or car at the time where they are in very serious and critical state of health; unable or not allowed to walk, which contributes to aggravating their illness.
- Sometime patients are forced to bear the disease, and stay untreated due to the obstacles caused by the complicated procedures, the long waiting on the checkpoints and the increased movement expenses.
- It is sometimes risky for some cases to be delayed on checkpoints.
The control of the water resources as well as the pollution resulting from the hazardous Israeli industrial remnants and the burial of dangerous wastes within the Palestinian Territories, has leaded to the aggravation of environmental degradation. Some examples of the Israeli practices within this area are the discovery of about 250 barrels of hazardous chemical wastes buried in Em Al-Tout Land in Jenin city. These were remnants from a paints factory in Ganim Settlement, most of which were dangerous and flammable materials. Also, some remnants were discovered to be buried in Qalqilia, Azzoun, Jayyous and Tulkarem in the north of the West Bank. The Palestinian Environment Quality Authority was able to locate more than 50 places in the West Bank where hazardous wastes were buried into by the Israelis, in addition to discovering cases with cancer in the southern area of the West Bank due to the burial of dangerous chemicals from one side, and the Dimona nuclear reactor from another. All the mentioned practices are considered to be violation of the environmental rights of the Palestinian human beings.
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Israel’s Reproductive Genocide in the Gaza Strip
Date posted: April 29, 2025
By MIFTAH
Executive Summary
The ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip has compounded several humanitarian and legal violations, particularly inrelation to the reproductive rights of Palestinian women. Since the launch of its military offensive in October 2023, Israelhas systematically targeted Palestinian women in ways that undermine their ability to survive, give birth, and raisechildren. More than 12,300 women have been killed, 4,700 women and children are missing, and approximately 800,000women have been forcibly displaced. An estimated one million women and girls now suffer from acute food insecurity.Israel’s actions constitute a deliberate attempt to impair the reproductive capacities of Palestinian women, aimed atdismantling the future of Palestinian society. Through the bombing of shelters, destruction of hospitals, blockading ofmedical and hygiene supplies, and attacks on fertility clinics and maternity wards, Israel’s policy of erasure is notincidental, it is intentional.
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Israel’s Attack on UNRWA and Its Implications for Palestinian Refugees
Date posted: March 05, 2025
By MIFTAH
Executive Summary
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is vital inproviding humanitarian aid, education, and health services to Palestinian refugees across Jordan, Lebanon,Syria, and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Beyond its humanitarian role, UNRWA represents aninternational commitment to Palestinian refugees' right of return, as established in UN General AssemblyResolution 194 in 1948. However, Israel has long sought to undermine the agency through financial, political,and military means.Recent Israeli actions have escalated, with the Israeli Knesset passing legislation banning UNRWAoperations in areas under Israeli control, effectively revoking its legal status. Concurrently, Israel hasintensified military attacks on UNRWA facilities. In the Gaza Strip since October 2023, Israeli forces havetargeted 310 UNRWA sites, destroying schools and killing 273 UNRWA employees alongside hundreds ofcivilians sheltering in its facilities. Throughout the occupied West Bank, the Israeli military has been turningUNRWA facilities into military bases and detention centers, and has closed UNRWA’s headquarters in EastJerusalem. These actions violate multiple international legal agreements and aim to erase Palestinian refugeeidentity and their legal rights.
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