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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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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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.

Read the full report here, or download it here:

Palestinian Women – The Disproportionate Impact of the Israeli Occupation

“Separating Bethlehem from Jerusalem and the rest of the world, will not bring peace." (Roman Catholic Patriarch Fouad Twal).

In many ways Bethlehem has become the quintessential Palestinian city under occupation: its population confronted with daily abuse, its historic geography and landscape ruined by the expansion of illegal settlements, the serpentine Israeli Separation Wall cutting deep into its heart and severing it from its ancient political, social, economic and religious links to Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, and its economic prospects are further challenged with every passing year. For the Palestinians living in Bethlehem and its environs each Christmas has become less of a reason to celebrate than a cause to reflect on the immense tragedy that has befallen this holy city, which is home to one of the oldest Christian communities on Earth.

FACT: The Israeli Occupation has dramatically restricted the Palestinians’ freedom of worship and access to churches in the Holy Land. Following the completion of Israel’s Wall in the northern part of Bethlehem City, Bethlehem and Jerusalem have now been completely separated from one another.

The Governorate and City under Occupation

Neither the Bethlehem Governorate nor the City has been spared from the devastating impact of Israel’s occupation and relentless colonization of Palestinian land. Creating ‘facts on the ground’ that render a two-state solution impossible, Israel continues to implement a series of policies that combine elements of occupation, colonization and apartheid to deliberately suffocate and fragment Bethlehem and its environs. These include the ongoing confiscation of Palestinian land for the construction of Israeli settlements and Wall in violation of international law, as well as the imposition of physical and administrative restrictions on freedom of movement for Palestinians, ranging from an ever expanding network of checkpoints and roadblocks to a punitive permit regime that limits where Palestinians can live, move and work.

• Only 13 percent of the land falling within the Bethlehem governorate is under Palestinian control;
• In the Bethlehem area alone, 32 physical barriers erected by the Israeli military—including checkpoints, roadblocks, dirt mounds, and gates—prevent freedom of movement and access for Palestinian goods and people[1]. According to the 2010 International Religious Freedom Report issued by the US State Department, “the government of Israel continued to apply travel restrictions during the reporting period that significantly impeded freedom of access to places of worship in the West Bank and Jerusalem for Muslims and Christians.”
• There are 17 illegal Israeli settlements and numerous outposts scattered throughout the governorate, housing a combined population of approximately 91,500 settlers; the most prominent of them is the Israeli Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who is a resident of the illegal settlement of Noqdim, in the Western Bethlehem area.
• As part of the Israeli settlement enterprise Israel maintains military control over a number of Palestinian heritage sites, including several on Palestine’s list of world heritage sites to UNESCO. Within the Bethlehem District these include the the Bilal Bin Rabah Mosque/Rachel’s Tomb, the Herodion archaeological site, and the Qumran archaeological site where the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered. The heritage sites in Bethlehem were recently affirmed by UNESCO as belonging to Palestine.
• Since 1993, Palestinians have been required to obtain Israeli military permission on a case by case basis to enter occupied East Jerusalem for any reason. If granted, such permits stipulate specified and limited crossing times.
• The unemployment in Bethlehem is approximately 23%, the majority of which is related to sectors targeted by the closure of Bethlehem and its separation from Jerusalem, mainly tourism, trade and agriculture.

Land annexed by Israel in the Bethlehem Governorate

In 1967, Israel annexed approximately 10 km2 of the Northern Bethlehem Governorate in violation of international law. Much of this land was illegally incorporated into the expanded municipal boundaries of East Jerusalem. Israel’s unilateral expansion of East Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries is not recognized by the international community. Many Palestinian towns and villages heavily reliant on agriculture for their economic survival have seen their agricultural lands illegally confiscated by Israel for the construction of settlements, settlement related infrastructure, and the Wall. The Palestinian towns of Beit Sahhur, Bethlehem, Beit Jala,Walaja, Husan, Battir, Wadi Fukin, Jaba, Nahhalin, Artas and al-Khadr have lost 65 percent of their total land area west of the Israeli Wall. For example:

• Nearly 50 percent of the land traditionally belonging to the village of Beit Jala;
• Up to 75 percent of the land traditionally belonging to the village of Al Khader;
• Most of the olive groves traditionally belonging to the village of Beit Sahhur, which have been separated from their Palestinian land owners by the Wall and are accessible only to those who hold rarely issued Israeli military permits. Palestinian farmers who do receive a permit to farm their land must cross through specially designated gates in the Wall that have restricted operating times;
• In January 2009, Israel issued military orders declaring the land annexed to the Israeli-controlled side of the Wall in the Northern part of the Bethlehem Governorate a “closed zone”[2], meaning that Palestinian owners are not allowed to access their land without an Israeli permit;
• The major settlements of Gilo, Har Gilo, Har Homa, Betar Illit, Efrat, Geva’ot and Bat’Ayin, as well as the expansion of Gi’vat Hadagan and Gi’vat Hatamar in the Efrata settlement, all of which are located in the Bethlehem Governorate, are also slated for expansion. In addition to this, plans have been submitted for a new settlement to be established called Gi’vat Yael in the Al Walaja area.

The Loss of Bethlehem’s Vital Tourism

Over the preceding two decades Bethlehem has become a shadow of its former self. Once a vibrant and open city, Bethlehem has been reduced to a ghetto beset by poverty, immobility and isolation. A walk through the Old Town of Bethlehem exposes one to a myriad of closed storefronts where shopkeepers once sold their wares to residents and tourists alike. The tourists that still enter Bethlehem are literally bused in and out within 2 hours for a specially coordinated visit, spending little to no time in Palestinian shops, restaurants and hotels before returning to Israeli hotels and restaurants to spend much of their time and money. In summary, the benefits of Bethlehem’s potential as a major tourist destination are exploited to serve a thriving Israeli tourism sector. This dire situation is most apparent during the holiday season falling between Christmas and Easter, when Bethlehem should be receiving most of its tourists.

• Contrary to the bilateral Palestinian-Israeli Interim Agreement (the Oslo Accords), of the 185 Palestinian tour guides licensed with the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, only 40 have permits to enter Jerusalem, Israel and Israeli-controlled heritage sites in the Palestinian territory. In contrast, there are approximately 7,150 full-time and part-time Israeli tour guides[3];
• Israel continues to promote hotels built in settlements, as well as settlement products to tourists and pilgrims visiting the occupied Palestinian territory, further undermining Palestine’s tourist industry[4];
• According to the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, tourists and pilgrims need to stay for a minimum of 3-4 nights in the occupied Palestinian territory to effectively contribute to the growth of Palestine’s tourism industry;
• Israel has implemented a policy whereby tourists visiting Bethlehem, during most of the year must exit the city only from “Checkpoint 300”, which has only one exit and one entry line for buses and cars alike, as opposed to foreigners visiting settlements in the Bethlehem area that are allowed to enter and exit the region through any checkpoint. This has created further delays at the checkpoint for Palestinians, tourists and pilgrims, making a visit to Bethlehem a burden many tourists are not interested in enduring.
• Despite all these restrictions and the limits imposed by the occupation, the Palestinian Authority has achieved an increase in the number of tourists staying in the occupied territory.

• Located at the Northern entrance of Bethlehem, the heritage site houses both the Bilal Mosque and Rachel’s Tomb. This is an important heritage site for Christianity, Islam and Judaism. In violation of the Oslo Accords, UNESCO conventions and international law, the Israeli military restricts access to the site to Jews only;
• The route of the Wall cuts 2 km into the Northern municipal boundaries of Bethlehem to encircle Bilal Mosque / Rachel’s Tomb, severely affecting Palestinian neighborhoods in the vicinity of the site. Seventy out of eighty businesses located in the area have been forced to close;
• Bilal Mosque / Rachel’s Tomb is adjacent to a predominantly Palestinian Christian neighborhood. Now encircled by the Wall, many residents have been forced to relocate to other areas within Bethlehem or to leave due to the economic and psychological challenges created by the military occupation and the Wall;

Christian festivals affected by Israel’s closure of Bethlehem

• According to the International Religious Freedom Report of 2010 issued by the US State Department, the construction of the Wall has “significantly impeded Bethlehem residents from reaching the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem and made visits to Christian sites in Bethany and Bethlehem difficult for Palestinians who live on the Jerusalem side of the barrier.”
• The same report states that the Wall and “checkpoints also impeded the movement of clergy between Jerusalem and West Bank churches and monasteries, as well as the movement of congregations between their homes and places of worship.”
• The Wall has also affected the Mar Elias Feast traditionally celebrated in August by Palestinian Christians and Muslims from Bethlehem, many of whom can no longer visit the monastery located only four kilometers North of Bethlehem;
• The second stop of the Christmas Procession with the Patriarchs coming from Bethlehem used to be a few meters after Bilal Mosque / Rachel’s Tomb. Today, due to the presence of the Wall, the Procession no longer waits for the Patriarch at this point.
• Israeli restrictions on Palestinian movement have also affected the feast of the Virgin Mary, an annual procession that takes place in August, preventing Christians from the Bethlehem area from participating in the procession that ends at the Church of the Assumption in Gethsamene in Jerusalem.

We Palestinians make a special appeal at Christmas time for people around the world to do their part in helping us resist the ongoing closure of Palestine in general and Bethlehem in particular. We ask the world to redouble their efforts this Christmas to make Bethlehem and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory open to visitors, to reconnect the ancient links between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, to bring peace and justice to Palestine so that we may all share once again in the celebration of the holidays.

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[1]UN OCHA, Shrinking Space: Urban Contraction and Rural Fragmentation in the Bethlehem Governorate, May 2009, available at: http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_bethlehem_shrinking _space_may_2009_english.pdf

[2]“Closed zones” are tracts of Palestinian land that Israel declares to be closed military areas, and are thus inaccessible to their Palestinian owners and farmers. Since 1967, Israel has declared more than 20% of West Bank land located east of the Wall closed military areas. For more information, refer to Barrier to Peace: The Impact of Israel’s Wall Five Years after the ICJ Ruling, July 2009, available at: http://www.nad-plo.org/news-updates/FINAL%20Anniversary%20of%20ICJ%20ruling%20on%20the%20Wall%20FINAL%209June09.pdf

[3] Statistics sourced from the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities

[4]In 2004, the International Court of Justice ruled that all Israeli settlements are illegal under international law. For further information, please refer to Barrier to Peace: The Impact of Israel’s Wall Five Years after the ICJ Ruling, July 2009, available at: http://www.nad-plo.org/news-updates/FINAL%20Anniversary%20of%20ICJ%20ruling%20on%20the%20Wall%20FINAL%209June09.pdf

Just one day after the official commencement of permanent status negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis and the reaffirmation of their respective commitments under the Road Map, Israel has intensified its aggression against the Palestinian people, killing at least 17 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and starting construction on 60 new housing units in Maaleh HaZeitim settlement in Ras El Amoud neighbourhood in Palestinian East Jerusalem.

Chief Palestinian Negotiator Dr. Saeb Erekat referred to today’s events as ‘‘the blazing destruction of Palestinian lives and property and a continuation of the Israeli policy of undermining the peace process and the efforts being exerted to revive hope in the minds of people that peace is possible.’’

Dr. Erekat reiterated calls for ‘‘concerted international efforts to stop the Israeli aggression against our people in Gaza and to pressure Israel to comply with its Road Map obligations, namely freezing all settlement activity, including in East Jerusalem.’’

Dr. Erekat also stressed that the current Israeli policies ‘‘undermine President Bush’s peace efforts.’’

‘‘Israel’s continuous attacks in Gaza and ongoing settlement construction in East Jerusalem highlight the enormous gap between official Israeli declarations and the deteriorating reality on the ground,’’ concluded Dr. Erekat.

Contact for more information:

Muzna Shihabi (English, French, and Arabic) Communications Advisor, Negotiations Support Unit
Tel: +972-2-296-3741
Mobile: +972-598-123-223
Email: mshihabi@nsu-pal.org

Wassim Khazmo (English and Arabic) Communications Advisor, Negotiations Support Unit
Tel: +972-2-296-3741
Mobile: +972-544-626-980
Email: wkhazmo@nsu-pal.org

“There is only one thing I can do. I will buy a tent and move with my wife to live on the other side of the fence among my trees. I don’t know if the Israelis will let me do it. They certainly won’t let me build a house. But perhaps I can live in a tent.”
–Sharif Omar, Palestinian Farmer

FACT SHEET:

Israel’s goal in building the “security” wall is twofold: (1) to confiscate Palestinian land in order to facilitate further colony expansion and unilaterally redraw geopolitical borders and (2) to encourage an exodus of Palestinians by denying them the ability to earn a living from their land, by denying them adequate water resources, and by restricting freedom of movement to such extent as to make remaining in the town or village an unviable option.

The first phase of the wall’s construction is complete. If the wall were truly about security, the wall would have been built on Israel’s 1967 pre-occupation border (the “Green Line”). However, the wall is not being built on the Green Line, but rather well within Occupied Palestinian Territory.

THE CASE OF JAYYUS – FORCED IMPOVERISHMENT THROUGH LAND CONFISCATION

For an accompanying map, see www.nad-plo.org/maps/focusqal.pdf

• Jayyus is located in the governorate of Qalqilya and has a population of approximately 3,100 Palestinians.

• The town is located six kilometers east of the Green Line.

• Jayyus is a farming town that provides produce to 60,000 Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

• In 1986, Israel confiscated 1,362 dunums of Jayyus land. The illegal Israeli colony of Zufin was built on the town’s confiscated lands.

• In 1990, Israel confiscated 30 dunums of Jayyus land. It is now being used as a dump site for the nearby Israeli colonies.

EFFECTS OF THE WALL ON JAYYUS

• The Israeli Army has built a militarily-fortified barrier 6 kilometers east of the Green Line, currently the furthest point into Occupied Palestinian Territory of the first phase of the wall.

• The wall has been built between Jayyus homes and Jayyus farmland, thereby separating Jayyus farmers from their fields.

 Approximately 9,000 dunums of agricultural land are separated from their owners, of which 2,500 dunums are irrigated crop lands on the other side of the wall. These irrigated crops provide 90% of the town’s total economic revenue.

 The wall separate Jayyus farmers from 120 greenhouses, 15,000 olive trees and 50,000 citrus trees. This area annually produces 17 million kilograms of vegetables and fruits.

• All seven of the town’s water wells are behind the wall. As a result, the town receives running water only two hours every three days, with an average per capita water consumption of 20 liters per day, five times below the World Health Organization’s daily per capita minimum health standard of 100 liters per day.

• Due to the wall and the accompanying travel restrictions, Jayyus residents are denied basic services, such as access to medical care located outside Jayyus.

• 480 of 550 families (87%) have lost their sole means of livelihood.

• 180 families are receiving humanitarian aid.

• In order to farm their lands, 32 farmers are living in tents on their land, separated from their homes and families.

1 Chris McGreal, The £1m-a-Mile Wall that Divides a Town from its own
Land of Plenty, THE GUARDIAN (UK), November 26, 2002.
2 1 dunum = ¼ acre.

“You don’t simply bundle people onto trucks and drive them away…I prefer to advocate a positive policy, to create, in effect, a condition that in a positive way will induce people to leave.” [1]
–Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister of Israel

Fact Sheet:

Israel’s goal in building the “security” wall is twofold: (1) to confiscate Palestinian land in order to facilitate further colony expansion and unilaterally redraw geopolitical borders and (2) to encourage an exodus of Palestinians by denying them the ability to earn a living from their land, by denying them adequate water resources, and by restricting freedom of movement to such extent as to make remaining in the town or village an unviable option.

The first phase of the wall’s construction is complete. If the wall were truly about security, the wall would have been built on Israel’s 1967 pre-occupation border (the “Green Line”). However, the wall is not being built on the Green Line, but rather well within Occupied Palestinian Territory.

The Case of Azzun Atma – Encircling the Village From All Sides

For an accompanying map, see http://www.nad-plo.org/maps/qalazzunatma903.pdf

* Situated within three kilometers of the Green Line, the village of Azzun Atma has a population of 1,500 Palestinians with half of the population under the age of 18. The village, and its neighboring village, Beit Amin, share two schools and a mosque.

* In 1982, Israel constructed the illegal colony of Sha’are Tiqwa between the two villages. The effect was to isolate the two villages from one another and disrupt territorial contiguity between the villages. The colony is located within meters of the village.

* The village yields the highest produce per dunum of land in the Occupied West Bank, and, as a result, the village is largely dependent upon its agricultural industry. Prior to September 2000, ten trucks of produce left the village daily: nine went to cities within the Occupied Palestinian Territories and one truck exported produce to Israel. Today, the main roads to the village have been completely blocked off, thereby preventing the shipment of produce.

* On March 13, 2003 Israel issued military orders for the construction of the wall.

Effects of the Wall on Azzun Atma

* Settlers living in the neighboring illegal Israeli colony of Sha’are Tiqva will have complete freedom of movement to and from Israel, while the Palestinians will be militarily caged into their village, unable to travel throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territories or even visit neighboring villages.

* 25 homeowners have been forced to stop building their homes in order to create the wall.

* Part of the village’s high school (constructed in 1964) will be destroyed.

* 33 of the 36 schoolteachers will be denied the ability to enter the village, thereby impacting the education of the village’s schoolchildren.

* Nine homes, housing 49 Palestinians, will be outside of the wall and will be completely isolated from the remainder of the village, thereby separating families and denying the children the ability to attend school.

1 David Bernstein, Forcible Removal of Arabs Gaining Support in Israel, THE TIMES (LONDON), August 24, 1988, at 7.