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.

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Palestinian Women – The Disproportionate Impact of the Israeli Occupation

Jerusalem, April 20, 2009 -- The World Bank published a report today entitled Assessment of Restrictions on Palestinian Water Sector Development. The report is the Bank’s first on the issue of water in the West Bank and Gaza (WBG). Together with two other recent reports, examining access to West Bank land and to telecommunication frequencies, it provides comprehensive insight into a critical, but largely unaddressed component of the economic restrictions impeding Palestinian economic development -- limited access to natural resources.

Noting the complete dependence of WBG on scarce water resources shared and largely controlled by Israel, the report finds that the joint governance rules and water allocations established under the 1995 Oslo interim agreement, still in effect today, fall short of the needs of the Palestinian people. Because of the imbalance in power, capacity and information between parties, interim governance rules and practices have resulted in systematic and severe constraints on Palestinian development of water resources, water uses, and wastewater management. Furthermore, since 2000, the Israeli-imposed movement and access restrictions, consisting of physical impediments, but also of permitting and decision-making practices, have further impaired Palestinian access to water resources, infrastructure development and utility operations.

When combined with governance and capacity weaknesses in Palestinian institutions, these rules and restrictions have resulted in an underdeveloped Palestinian water sector. Even though the PA and many donors have invested in establishing a sustainable and equitable water sector, access to water resources, water infrastructure and institutions remain inadequate. The sector continues to operate in a very inefficient emergency mode, with far reaching economic, social and environmental consequences. Water-related humanitarian crises are in fact chronic in Gaza and in parts of the West Bank.

Indeed, availability of water resources is highly disparate, with fresh water per capita in Israel approximately four times that of WBG. Whereas Israel has established efficient water infrastructure and management, the PA is struggling to attain the basic level of infrastructure and service of a low-income country. Water investment in WBG has dropped to very low levels, is fragmented and inefficient, and perpetuates low utility performance. In Gaza, marginal water and sanitation investment is contributing to an unchecked water quality crisis with severe public health and environmental impacts.

To begin ameliorating the situation, , the study recommends the adoption of an agenda that clearly addresses identified shortcomings in water resource development and management, a low and declining investment rate, and weak management of water services. This would require formulation of effective solutions to the following existing problems:

1. A joint governance system asymmetrical in power and capacity, which does not facilitate the rational planning and development of Palestinian water resources and infrastructure;
2. An investment environment that creates huge costs and delays;
3. Implementation restrictions that can make the movement of a single pipe a logistical and administrative challenge;
4. Weak institutional capacity of the PA and of most sector actors (such as operators and municipalities) for planning, implementation and management of water infrastructure;
5. Development partnerships that move uneasily between the political context and the development challenge and are often stuck in emergency rather than strategic mode.

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About the Report

The report was initiated at the request of the PA. Its goal is to develop a balanced analysis and to create awareness of the factors restricting West Bank and Gaza’s water sector development as well as of the economic, socio-political, and environmental impacts of such restrictions. It was conducted during Sept. 2008 and Feb. 2009, by a multi- disciplinary team of international and local experts on water resource management, water supply and sanitation, sociology, public policy and conflict, and involved consultations on process and findings with Palestinian and Israeli stakeholders. The target audience includes Palestinian and Israeli government officials, as well as the donor community and all stakeholders engaged in the water sector, including Palestinian water providers and users. The findings are also expected to be of immediate interest to the donors’ Ad Hoc Liaison Committee when it convenes this spring.

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1. The Quartet has stated that the Hamas movement must meet a number of basic political conditions, and has connected Hamas’ response to levels and forms of future donor assistance to the Palestinian Authority (PA)1. The Government of Israel (GOI) has also indicated that it is not prepared to conduct political relations with Hamas unless it modifies its basic stance towards the State of Israel2.

The Evolving Economic Situation

2. In mid-March, the Bank modeled the impacts of a possible combination of actions by GOI and the donor community—see the Attachment. Readers are referred to Scenario 4, which assumed for 2006 the following:

• continued GOI withholding of Palestinian tax revenues collected on the PA’s behalf;
• border trade restrictions comparable to those enacted in 2005;
• a 50 percent reduction in the average 2005 level of daily labor flows into Israel from Gaza and the West Bank; and
• a reduction in donor disbursements of US$200 million, or 15 percent, as compared with last year.

3. Even with these restrained assumptions, the economy would experience a dramatic decline over the coming eight months: by the end of 2006, average personal income would decrease by 30 percent in real terms, unemployment would increase from the pre-election figure of c. 23 percent to about 40 percent, and poverty levels would climb from 44 percent last year to 67 percent.

4. Based on evolving GOI and donor policies, these projections now appear too rosy.

• Palestinian revenues continue to be withheld, though GOI has decided to use a portion of them to reimburse Israeli public sector providers for electricity, water and health referral services supplied to the PA3;
• Border trade restrictions are proving more stifling than in 2005, particularly in Gaza (where the border has been sealed to imports and exports for over a half of the year to date)4;
• Donor disbursements could well prove lower than projected: the suspension of direct transfers to the PA by OECD donors is being implemented more rapidly than the Bank anticipated;
• Commercial banks in West Bank and Gaza have been reminded of their potential legal liability under US anti-terror legislation, leading them to withhold services to the PA; this is impeding the PA’s ability to receive transfers of funds from abroad (in particular, from Arab League donors), and to operate an internal payments system5. Similar concerns have also led two major Israeli banks to announce that they will sever their relationship with Palestinian banks, and other Israeli banks are considering their position6.

5. The Bank’s recent projections will be revised in the forthcoming Economic Monitoring Note #2 using updated macroeconomic data, and in light of evolving developments. At the time of writing, though, the key aggregates seem likely to decline by several additional percentage points; this would make 2006, by a margin, the worst year in the West Bank and Gaza’s dismal recent economic history.

6. The recession has already begun, with March and April’s public sector salaries so far unpaid and with signs of food and gasoline shortages manifesting in Gaza, the result of faltering supply (due to persistent closure of the passages into Gaza)7. In early April, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) conveyed to Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs its concern at the early emergence of a supply-induced humanitarian crisis8. GOI, which is calibrating the flow of commodities into West Bank and Gaza, remains confident said that the situation is under control, and believes such claims to be exaggerated9.

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Foreword – The Context for this Report

The Rationale for Periodic Assessments

• The World Bank presented to the December 8, 2004 meeting of the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee (AHLC) a report (Stagnation or Revival? Israeli Disengagement and Palestinian Economic Prospects) which argued that rapid Palestinian economic revival is essential to sustaining the momentum of a renewed peace process, but that it will only come about if there is
  1. A drastic improvement in the security environment;
  2. A dismantling of the various post-September 28, 2000 restrictions on the movement of Palestinian people and goods; and
  3. Dynamic progress on Palestinian governance reform and institution-building.
• If these preconditions for economic revival emerge, it was argued, a major increase in donor assistance levels could have a transformational effect. In furtherance of this premise the Bank identified an agenda of key measures “which, if implemented, will lay the basis for the economic revival of the West Bank and Gaza” (see Annex 3). These measures are consistent with the obligations of the Government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority specified under Phase I of the Roadmap. As a corollary to this virtuous sequence, the Bank noted that a quantum increase in donor financing would be hard to justify if meaningful progress in security, closure and reform policy was not made—both because the impact of these resources would be seriously muted, and because the private sector response needed to sustain the impact of the additional spending would not emerge.
• The Bank’s report was endorsed by the December 2004 AHLC Meeting. In its Summary, the AHLC Chair requested the Bank to work with the parties and donors to translate the report’s recommendations into a set of actionable measures, and to monitor progress towards their implementation; this would then help donors form a judgment on the extent to which the preconditions for economic revival are being put in place. At the London Meeting on March 1, 2005 donors and the PA agreed that the first Bank Economic Monitoring Report should be prepared as an input to the next AHLC Meeting.
• Integral to this report is a matrix of Indicators of Economic Revival (Annex 2). These indicators were developed by the Bank with assistance from the European Commission and the United States. They should not be considered a checklist or scorecard, and are not of themselves determinant: they merely help anchor a qualitative analysis of the extent to which the preconditions for robust economic growth are being re-established.

1 – Summary Assessment and Recommendations

I – The Need for Rapid Economic Growth

1. Sustained economic growth in the West Bank and Gaza is a vital part of the process of political normalization. As the World Bank wrote in December 2004, “While prosperity is no guarantee of tranquility, history teaches that the opposite is true: that destitution, political instability and violence are constant companions1”. Jim Wolfensohn, the Quartet Special Envoy for Disengagement, has continually emphasized the need to create Palestinian economic momentum, and its connection with Israel’s security. In his letter of October 30, 2005 to Prime Minister Sharon and President Abbas, he writes “I believe that we have an opportunity….to see a peaceful period where Palestinians can develop a better life based on tangible and visible prospects and where Israel can be more secure precisely because Palestinians….have greater freedom and hope”2.
2. Employment, and particularly youth employment, must be the essence of any Palestinian economic revitalization strategy. The Bank in December 2004 calculated that it would take an increase in the real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 10 percent per annum over the 2005-8 period to reduce unemployment to pre-intifada levels of around 12 percent—essentially a doubling of the 2003-4 rate of growth. Achieving this, it was argued, required a combination of four factors: a dramatic reduction in violence against Israelis, the restoration of Palestinian movement and access, Palestinian governance renewal and, on top of these policy preconditions, an increase in donor disbursements of about 50 percent per annum. The Quartet Special Envoy has underlined this same message on several occasions: “successful reconstruction requires four fundamentals—an absence of violence, a rolling back of the restrictions on Palestinian movement, vigorous Palestinian governance reform and increased foreign aid”.

   II – Growth in 2005 – Encouraging but Inconclusive

3. Real GDP is expected to grow by 8-9 percent in 20053. It should be remembered that this is growth from a low base—at the end of 2005, real GDP per capita was still some 29 percent less than in 1999. Nonetheless, unemployment is expected to decline by 4 percentage points this year, from c. 27 to c. 22.5 percent, while nominal personal incomes are expected to rise by about 12 percent4.
4. This year’s performance reflects four key factors: an expansionary Palestinian Authority (PA) fiscal policy, which has raised public consumption by almost a quarter; solid economic growth in Israel and the demand this has created for Palestinian merchandise exports and Palestinian labor, along with a relaxation of border closures sufficient to permit Palestinians to take advantage of this; a 30 percent increase in credit to the private sector fuelling strong growth in the transport and construction sectors; and a 20 percent increase in donor disbursements. PA fiscal expansion, though, is unsustainable; unless checked, it will lead to functional bankruptcy (i.e. the PA’s inability to meet its monthly salary bill and deliver the most basic services). The drivers of growth also underscore the tight interconnections with the Israeli economy, and thereby the degree of dependence on Israeli closure management.
5. The Bank’s economic projections (Annex 1) show that such growth will not persist without good Palestinian governance, sound economic management and a continued relaxation of closure by GOI—including the maintenance of current labor 2 The Palestinian Economy and the Prospects for its Recovery flows. The scenarios compare the relative impact of a) an improving policy environment without additional funding (the Recovery, No Additional Aid scenario), and b) stagnant policy with c. US$500 million per annum of extra donor funds (Status Quo, Additional Aid). Neither of these scenarios delivers: good policies alone do result in positive GDP growth of about 5 percent per annum, but unemployment declines by only 2 percent over three years. Money alone is less beneficial: real GDP growth disappears by 2008, and unemployment increases by 3 percent in the coming three years5.
6. The only satisfactory way forward is to combine good policies by both sides with more money. The Recovery, Additional Aid scenario embodies continued easing of closures and stable labor access with strong Palestinian governance and the re-establishment of fiscal control, accompanied by generous donor assistance. This combination brings rapid growth and a marked decline in unemployment. By 2008, propelled by rising exports6, personal incomes increase by 20 percent7 and unemployment falls by almost a half, to 13 percent of the workforce8.

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WORLD BANK PAPER URGES MAJOR EASING OF ISRAELI CLOSURE MEASURES AND STEPPED-UP PALESTINIAN REFORM EFFORTS

WASHINGTON, June 24, 2004At the request of the Palestinian Authority (PA), the Government of Israel (GOI) and the international community, the World Bank has released a paperDisengagement, the Palestinian Economy and the Settlementswhich looks at the potential impact of Israel’s Disengagement Plan on the Palestinian economy.

Since the beginning of the intifada in September 2000, the West Bank and Gaza has suffered one of the worst recessions in modern history. GDP per capita has declined by almost 40 percent, and nearly half of the Palestinian population is living in poverty. This crisis has resulted from restrictions on the movement of Palestinian people and goods, or ‘closures’, which the Government of Israel regards as essential to protecting its citizens from attacks by militants. Without major changes in this closure regime, however, the Palestinian economy will not revive, poverty and alienation will deepen.

Of itself, Israel’s Disengagement Plan of June 6 will have very little impact on the Palestinian economy, since it proposes only a limited easing of closure..

“Disengagement alone,” says James D. Wolfensohn, President of the World Bank, “will not alter this dangerous, unsustainable situation. If disengagement is implemented with wisdom and foresight, however, it could make a real difference.”

The paper argues that a modernized border cargo regime should be introduced by GOI. Technologies and administrative methods exist that permit the orderly flow of cargo and the maintenance of security. Introducing such a regime would make a major difference to Palestinian welfare and commercial prospects. On its part, the PA needs to make credible security efforts and to commit itself to a reinvigorated program of reforms designed to create an investor-friendly business environment.

“If the PA shows firm commitment to security and economic reform,” adds Mr. Wolfensohn, “and if Israel seriously addresses closure, another major donor effort definitely would be justified. Under these circumstances an additional US$500 million each year could help the Palestinian economy turn the corner.”

With donor disbursements to the Palestinians currently amounting to approximately US$1 billion per year or US$310 per personone of the highest per capita rates in the history of foreign assistancedonors will need to perceive a fundamental change in Palestinian economic prospects if they are to make such additional efforts.

The paper also discusses how the settlement assets that Israel will leave behind in Gaza and the West Bank might best be transferred to the Palestinians. The PA is advised to take the opportunity provided by Disengagement to demonstrate that it can receive and dispose of the settlement assets in a fair and transparent manner. It is suggested that the PA create a special agency for this purpose. The international community, acting through the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee, can provide the necessary advice and technical assistance to ensure that the asset transfer process goes well, and is acceptable to all parties.