BACKGROUND
Today Israeli-only roads across the West Bank have become a defining feature of the apartheid policies implemented by Israel in the Palestinian territories. In addition to violating Palestinians’ freedom of movement and access, with serious repercussions for health, education and livelihoods, the apartheid roads have consolidated and strengthened the presence of Israeli colonies across the West Bank, ensuring superior access for settlers at the expense of the indigenous Palestinians. The consequences include an inability to access core services and increased forced displacement pressures for Palestinians.
The impact of the apartheid roads, however, extends beyond their humanitarian consequences as they destroy both the economic and political prospects of the Palestinian people.
The territorial fragmentation created by the roads is according to UN OCHA, ‘at the root of the West Bank’s declining economy,’2 while their continued construction is making a just solution to the illegal occupation increasingly difficult to envisage. In fact, although Israel’s occupation policies have led to analogies being drawn with South African apartheid, as a number of commentators have noted, the presence of these roads represents a situation much worse than the apartheid in South Africa;
“When Israel...connects the 200-or-so
settlements with each other, with a road, and
then prohibits the Palestinians from using
that road, or in many cases even crossing the
road, this perpetrates even worse instances of
apartness, or apartheid, than we witnessed even
in South Africa.”
Former US President Jimmy Carter3
‘The term ‘the crime of
apartheid’, shall apply to...
Any measures including
legislative measures,
designed to divide the
population along racial
lines by the creation of
separate reserves and
ghettos for the members of
a racial group or groups...
the expropriation of landed
property belonging to a
racial group or groups or
to members thereof…’
International Convention on the
Suppression and Punishment of the
Crime of Apartheid Article 2 part 41
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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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