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

Al Mezan Center for Human Rights expresses its great concern upon kidnapping of Kate Burton and her parents and calls upon the PNA to exert efforts to secure their release

One day has passed since Kate Burton was kidnapped and at the time the PNA [Palestinian National Authority] is still unable to identify the place of kidnappers.

Kate Burton is British of 24 years old; she has been working as International Coordinator at Al Mezan Center for Human Rights for the last three months. Ms. Burton has also taken part with the UNDP [United Nations Development Programme] in the Gaza Strip where she maintains excellent relationships with Palestinians. She actively supported the Palestinian cause, and worked hard on backing up Palestinians and exposing Israeli violations against Palestinian civilians. Ms. Burton has chosen to stay and work in the Gaza Strip in spite of the insecure and unsafe situation.

Al Mezan Center for Human Rights condemns the disrespect of the law substantiated in kidnapping international activists and social workers who face great sufferings while coming to the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) to provide assistance for Palestinians. Further, Al Mezan Center emphasizes that such incidents deform the image of Palestinians and misinterpret their cause to the world.

Therefore, Al Mezan Center expresses its concern upon kidnapping the human rights activist Kate Burton, and calls upon the PNA to exert its utmost effort to secure the release of Kate and her parents.

The Center calls on the political bodies and citizens to assist by providing any evidence that would lead to Kate, and appeals to whoever has information on the kidnapping to contact Al Mezan at +972 2820442 - 2820447 or call on the Fieldwork Unit Coordinator cell phone: +972 0599461681.

Between December 15th and the early morning of 18th, the IOF continued their shelling over areas of the Gaza Strip, shelling approximately 42 tank missiles and 30 air missiles, in addition to random firing from military watch towers located on the border between Gaza and Israel. This offensive resulted in 8 injured Palestinians, among them a woman, a baby girl and a disabled person. The main roads were closed due to damages caused by the shelling.

According to Al Mezan’s fieldworkers, Israeli tanks were positioned on the eastern borders of the northern Gaza Strip, and fired approximately 42 missiles on populated areas of east Jabalia, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun. Israeli air forces continued shelling areas in northern Gaza, destroying Al Sika bridge to Beit Hanoun, causing a deep ditch at the crossroads which obstructed the movement of people and vehicles. The affected streets were Khalil Il Wazir, Salah Il Din and the Bedouin Village road; in addition unpaved roads in agricultural areas of east Jabalia and northern Beit Lahia were also damaged. Furthermore, the shelling caused severe damages to nearby houses, injuring 7 Palestinians including 2 women and a 3- month old baby girl Maria Fikri Akhrawat who, according to medical sources, suffered shrapnel wounds to her right eye. In addition, the IOF fired a missile on a yard pertaining to the agricultural faculty of Al Azhar University located in northern Beit Hanoun, causing partial damages to the faculty.

The IOF fired 2 missiles on To’aymat area east of the Islamic University building in Khan Younis, resulting in no casualties but terrifying civilians, most notably women and children. The IOF also fired a missile on Salah Il Din near Sofia junction between Khan Younis and Rafah, and another missile on Hamuda petrol station in northern Gaza, causing complete inaccessibility of the road for several hours.

At approximately midnight on December 17th, the IOF opened fire on the eastern part of Shuhada cemetery in East Jabalia, injuring a mentally disabled 30-year-old citizen Wael Khami Il Qahawaji who suffered a gunshot to his left leg. At approximately 10pm on December 17th, the IOF opened fire on houses located in northwest Beit Lahia killing another citizen, 22-year- old Lokman Mohammed Hamad Abu Zakri from Nusseirat Camp. The IOF have maintained the closure of Sofia border crossing since December 14th and Erez border crossing since December 16th; medical patients in particular remain prevented from crossing through Erez crossing.

Al Mezan centre for human rights condemns the ongoing IOF offensive and emphasizes that such random attacks that terrify civilians, and the imposed siege imposed on the Gaza Strip, constitute war crimes by international law and notably the 4th Geneva Convention.

Therefore, Al Mezan calls upon the international community, in particular the contracting parties to the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, to immediately intervene to halt and put an end to Israeli war crimes and provide protection to civilians as a vital first step to effectively ending the occupation of the OPT.

In a critical escalation of the state of insecurity in the OPT, a family dispute in Gaza has resulted in 5 dead and 30 injured, among them 8 children and 2 women.

According to the Center's fieldworkers, on December 1st at approximately 8pm, a violent fight broke out between two families in the North Gaza District of Beit Hanoun, killing 5 citizens and injuring 2 women, 8 children, and 30 citizens, 5 of whom are now in critical medical conditions. Those killed are:

• Shaher Jameel Al Masri, aged 25
• Al Sheikh Salah Mohammad Mohammad Al Masri, aged 47
• Hussain Hassan Ibrahim Al Masri, aged 35
• Abdel Salam Mustafa Ashour Al Kafarna, aged 50
• Police officer Issam Assad Hewaihi, aged 27

National Islamic efforts and tribal interventions were attempted to end the fighting, although were unsuccessful. The PNA, however remained silent with the exception of sending police forces to the scene two days later on the 3rd December.

Al Mezan expresses its sincere sorrow over the loss of these victims. In addition, the Centre condemns the heightening levels of insecurity and the PNA's incapability to put an end to such feuds which are encouraging citizens to disrespect the law and take it into their own hands.

Thus, Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights calls on the PNA to take all necessary procedures to end the state of insecurity and the use of arms in Palestinian streets, and enforce the rule of law to guarantee stability and safety among Palestinians.

Al Mezan Center condemns the ongoing Israeli offensive against the Palestinians, and calls upon the Palestinian factions to respect the law and end armed parades.

In a recent escalation, Israeli air forces launched three air strikes on different areas in the Gaza Strip.

According to the center's fieldworkers, on September 24th, 2005, at approximately 5:05 am, Israeli air forces hit the house of Abu Laban family in Beit Lahia, north of the Gaza Strip, destroying it partially. No causalities were reported.

Five Minutes later, they hit unpopulated area near Ali Bin Abu Taleb Mosque, western Az-Zaitoun area in Gaza City. No causalities or property damages were reported.

Further, at approximately 5:15am, the same day, they shelled a smithery workshop owned by Ghazi Abu Assi, near As-Seka Street, east Az-zaitoun area in Gaza City, destroying it partially. One Palestinian was wounded as a result.

Israeli Air Forces continued to launch illusionary strikes on the Gaza strip, causing panic among Palestinian civilians and children.

Furthermore, IOF continue to close Rafah crossing, the only outlet for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to the outside world, and interrupt the course of reaching an agreement on reopening Rafah crossing. IOF, also, impede the construction of a seaport in the Gaza Strip, and rebuilding the Gaza International Airport.

They also continue the construction of the apartheid wall that disconnects Israel from the Gaza strip, seizing thousands of dunams of Palestinian agricultural lands.

On the other hand, On September 23rd, 2005, an expulsion occurred during a military parade of the Izz Ad-Din Al-Qassam brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). 19 Palestinians were reported killed and 130 injured. A Hamas spokesperson affirmed that the explosion was as a result to an Israeli air strike by an exploratory airplane. However, the Palestinian Ministry of Interior assured that the explosion occurred as a result to internal technical mistakes.

It also calls upon the PNA to open an investigation into this incident to find out the truth. It is worth noting that the IOF consider firing rockets on Palestinians targets legal, and practice it widely without discrimination.

Also, repeated technical mistakes that resulted from practices of armed groups led to the death of tens of Palestinian civilians in several occasions.

The center is gravely concerned about the continuation of military parades carried out by military factions and their grievous consequences. The center calls upon all armed groups to stop such marches and military parades, respect the law, and reinforce the internal security in the Palestinians Society

The Center condemns IOFs' re-escalation of their offensive and the imposition of tight siege on the Gaza Strip.

The center believes that the IOF misled that world by allowing the disengagement to function as a cover under which Palestinians’ human rights will continue to be violated. The center emphasizes that the Israeli practices represented in arbitrary and randomly shelling of Palestinians property, killing of Palestinians civilians and tight siege constitute grave breaches of international law, particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention

The center calls upon the international community to put an end to the Israeli war crimes and provide protection to the Palestinians in the OPT.