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

Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The U.S. Record 2003-2004 is submitted to the Congress by the U.S. Department of State in compliance with Section 665 of P.L. 107-228, the Fiscal Year 2003 Foreign Relations Authorization Act, which was signed into law on September 30, 2002, requiring the Department to report on actions taken by the U.S. Government to encourage respect for human rights.

Unlike the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, issued annually by the State Department and covering 196 countries, Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The U.S. Record 2003-2004 highlights U.S. efforts to promote human rights and democracy in the 101 countries and entities with the worst human rights records, taking care to include those countries of concern for "extrajudicial killings, torture and other serious violations of human rights."

The segment below contains only the Reports coverage of the West Bank and Gaza, and was extracted form the Middle East & North Africa section.

The complete report can be found at

WEST BANK AND GAZA

Israel’s overall human rights record in the West Bank and Gaza remained poor and worsened in the treatment of foreign human rights activists. The Palestinian Authority (PA) also had a poor human rights record. Israel’s security forces killed at least 573 Palestinians and one foreign national and injured 2,992 Palestinians and other persons during the year. Israeli security units often used excessive force in their operations that resulted in numerous deaths. Israel carried out policies of demolitions, strict curfews and closures that directly punished innocent civilians. Israeli forces often impeded the provision of medical assistance to Palestinian civilians by strict enforcement of internal closures, harassed and abused Palestinian pedestrians and drivers at the approximately 430 Israeli-controlled points in the occupied territories and conducted mass, arbitrary arrests in the West Bank. Israel restricted the freedom of the Palestinian media and placed strict limits on freedom of assembly and movement for Palestinians.

The PA continued to commit numerous, serious abuses. Palestinian terrorists and gunmen were responsible for the deaths of 376 Israelis killed in the occupied territories. Many members of Palestinian security services and the Fatah faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization participated with civilians and terrorist groups in violent attacks against Israeli civilians inside Israel, Israeli settlers, foreign nationals and soldiers. Palestinian security forces used excessive force against Palestinians during demonstrations. PA security officials abused prisoners and arbitrarily arrested and detained persons. PA courts were inefficient and failed to ensure fair and expeditious trials, and PA executive and security services frequently ignored or failed to enforce court decisions. Internal closure in the occupied territories obstructed courts from holding sessions or issuing rulings. The PA security forces infringed on the right to privacy and restricted freedom of speech and the press.

The U.S. human rights and democracy strategy for the West Bank and Gaza supported implementation of President Bush’s two-state vision, the end of violence and the restart of a political process within Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. The United States utilized bilateral and multilateral diplomacy to emphasize the unacceptability of violence on all sides and demand PA actions against terrorism in the West Bank and Gaza as well as in Israel. The Roadmap explicitly calls on both parties to end incitement, and calls on the Palestinians to undertake comprehensive reforms.

U.S. programs worked to improve the rule of law in the West Bank and Gaza. Approximately $1.9 million in assistance was provided to introduce advanced caseload management techniques and equipment to seven Palestinian courts. This same program improved the capabilities of the Palestinian Attorney General’s office, helping the state prosecutor’s office modernize its administrative functions and raise its technical capacity. Programs offered judicial training, specifically addressing complex areas of modern law such as international property rights, international banking, commercial transactions and ethics. Assistance further helped establish two Alternative Dispute Resolution centers that are available to mediate and arbitrate legal claims outside the court system.

U.S. officials continued to encourage Palestinian legislators to pursue governmental reform. Video-conferencing equipment financed by the U.S. Agency for International Development enabled the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) to deliberate and conduct parliamentary sessions despite frequent closures and travel restrictions in the West Bank and Gaza. Such sessions included the historic Spring 2003 session during which the PLC revised the Palestinian Basic Law to create the position of the Prime Minister. In addition, the United States funded other programs totaling approximately $3 million to strengthen the institution of the PLC. Assistance improved its capacity to conduct oversight of the executive branch, raised the quality of its lawmaking, deepened its management controls and capacity and extended its reach to ensure that the PLC effectively represented the interests of its constituents.

Other funding supported preparations for Palestinian elections, including assistance for women candidates and women’s political organizations, and training in building and promoting political platforms. These activities offered leadership and organizational training to emerging young Palestinian activists, mid-career managers and mid-level government workers.

Support for civil society development in the West Bank and Gaza remained a U.S. priority, and its flagship program, “Tamkeen,” was allocated $33 million for 2000-2005. To date, the project has awarded 193 grants totaling $10 million to Palestinian civil society organizations to promote democracy and provide training in advocacy, finance and strategy. A $1 million “Moderate Voices” project supported Palestinian civil society organizations that have developed creative means, including a popular radio soap opera series, to teach non-violence, conflict resolution and mediation. The U.S.-Middle East Partnership Initiative helped launch an Arab Civitas project to introduce civic education into Palestinian schools.

The United States provided assistance to strengthen media professionalism, content and independence. Programs provided instruction to print journalists on investigative reporting and trained television media professionals on the production and airing of topical talk shows.

Public diplomacy programs sought to improve human rights awareness in the West Bank and Gaza among all citizens. The Consulate General in Jerusalem hosted numerous speakers on the topics of rule of law and democratization, sponsored Palestinians’ participation in international conferences addressing these topics and provided books and other publications in Arabic and English on human rights and democracy to local schools, libraries, PA officials and other contacts. Palestinians were also regular participants in the Salzburg Seminar, International Visitor and Fulbright Summer Institute programs, which focused on democracy and human rights topics.

The State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration administered $1.4 million in special projects to promote human rights, tolerance and conflict resolution skills among Palestinian refugee children. Under a multi-year grant to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestine refugees, projects introduced supplementary educational materials and peer mediation training in all UNRWA schools in the West Bank and Gaza in grades 4 through 9. The materials included illustrated storybooks that introduce basic concepts of human rights, tolerance and responsibility for one’s actions as well as worksheets that introduce human rights and tolerance concepts at pre-selected points in the Palestinian curriculum.