Key Findings of USAID Assessment
- Chronic and acute malnutrition is widespread among children under five years of age and increasing rapidly. 30% of children screened suffered from chronic malnutrition and 21% from acute malnutrition. These numbers have increased significantly since 2000 when only 7.5% and 2.5% of children suffered from chronic and acute malnutrition respectively.
- Moderate to mild anemia is also evident. 45% of children under 5 years of age and 48% of women of childbearing age suffer from moderate to mild anemia.
- More than 30% of the 3.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are dependant upon food handouts from the World Food Program and the ICRC or other NGOs. The number of Palestinians requiring food assistance is increasing daily. According to USAID analysis, approximately 50% of all Palestinians (refugee and non-refugee) require external food assistance to help meet their minimum daily caloric intake.
- Of 320 households surveyed, 50% stated their need to borrow money to purchase basic foodstuffs, with 16% selling assets for the same purpose.
- The March-April 2002 incursions brought at least a 50% increase in the number of Palestinian home demolitions since the beginning of the intifada.
- The Palestinian Ministry of Housing reports that approximately 720 homes were destroyed by the IDF and another 11,553 damaged from September 2000 to February 2002. 73,600 people were affected.
- The March-April 2002 incursions destroyed another 881 homes and damaged some 2,883 houses in refugee camps. An estimated 22,500 people were residents of these homes.
- There is increasing risk of communicable disease outbreak. Due to diminished access to potable water, residence overcrowding, and inadequate shelter, possible disease outbreak, such as cholera, is a growing concern.
- The medical treatment of Palestinians living in rural communities, and those with chronic diseases such as renal failure, diabetes, cancer, and hypertension, has been interrupted due to access, affordability, and availability-related issues.
- According to Palestinian Ministry of Health estimates, births attended by skilled health workers have decreased from 97.4%, pre-intifada, to 67% currently. Home deliveries have increased from 3% pre-intifada, to 30%, at present.
- Availability of immunization has decreased. Interruptions in electricity supply make medical facilities unable to maintain cold storage and cause vaccines to spoil, further aggravating growing health concerns. The child immunization program is breaking down.
- According to the World Bank, 70% of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza live below the poverty line of less than $2 per day. Only 90 days ago, in April 2002, the World Bank estimated 50% of Palestinians were below the poverty level. The UN defines 62% of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza as "vulnerable" or in need of food, shelter, and/or access to health services.
- A USAID environmental health assessment team found that of 300 households surveyed in Nablus, NONE were found to have drinking water acceptable to international standards. Fecal bacteria often contaminated water.
- The incidence of diarrhea is increasing. This is indicative of unsanitary living conditions and questionable water supply. USAID preliminary findings indicate that 30% of the 320 households interviewed throughout the West Bank and Gaza reported diarrheal characteristics among at least one of its members during the first two weeks of June.
- The Palestinian Ministry of Health reports that because of closures and curfews, its facilities operate at about 30% capacity. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society reported that 25 of its 121 ambulance fleet were damaged beyond repair by the Israeli defense forces. Curfews and closures cause ambulances to require 6 to 8 hours on average to transport patients to hospitals, if they obtain access at all.
- In June 2002 USAID found that 28% of the 320 households interviewed had at least one family member who was not granted access to needed emergency medical services while 67% of households reported that access was not granted to at least one family member who required long-term treatment such as dialysis, hemotherapy, or diabetes management.
- A Bir Zeit University study surveyed 764 households and found widespread psychological illness. 87% of households reported psychological difficulties in one or more family members.
Palestinian Women: The Disproportionate Impact of The Israeli Occupation
Date posted: November 21, 2018
By KARAMA
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
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), issued a press release on the Eve of the International Women’s Day
Date posted: March 10, 2018
By Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS)
Women represent half of the Palestinian population
The qualitative base of the structure of the population in Palestine the sex ratio stood at 103.3, which means that there are 103 males for every 100 females
The percentage of female-headed households
The percentage of female-headed households in Palestine was 10.6% in 2017, 11.2% in the West Bank and 9.5% in Gaza Strip.
fifth of the persons in Palestine got married at an early age (less than 18 years) in 2016
Early marriage reached to 20.5% among females and 1.0% among males of the total married population in Palestine; the rate was 19.9% out of the total married population in West Bank and 21.6% out of the total married population in Gaza Strip end 2016.
The highest rate of female early marriage in the West Bank was in Hebron 36.8%, and the lowest was in Jericho and the Jordan Valley 1.2% out of the total number of women marriage below 18 years in the West Bank. In Gaza Strip, the highest rate of early female marriage was 42.1% in Gaza Governorate, while the lowest rate was in Dier Al-Balah 7.1% out of the total number of women marriage below 18 years in Gaza Strip.
A continued rise in literacy among women
Despite the rise in literacy rates among females over the last decade, the gap is still in favor of males by 3.0%, female literacy rates was 95.6% compared to 98.6% for male literacy in the year 2017.
Rise in enrollment rate of females in high schools compared to males
Data showed that male enrollment in high schools was 60.5%, compared to female enrollment which was 80.4% for the year 2016-2017.
A gap in the participation rate and average daily wages between men and women
The female participation rate in the labor force was 19.0% of the total female population at work age in 2017, compared to 10.3% in 2001, while the male participation rate was 71.2% in 2017. There was also a pay gap in the average daily wages between males and females; the average daily wage for females was NIS 84.6 compared to NIS 119.6 for males.
Around half of the women are unemployed
The unemployment rate among women participated in the labor force was 47.4% compared to 22.3% for participated males. 65.8% of youth females aged of (15-29 years) were unemployed. While the unemployment rate among women with 13 school years and above represents 53.8% of women in this group.
Palestinian Women in Public Life
In 2017; 21.2% of the members of the local councils are females in the West Bank while 78.8% were males.
In 2016, 82.7% of judges were male, compared to 17.3% female, while 66.6% of registered lawyers were male, compared to 33.4% female and 82.0% of members of the public prosecution staff were male, compared to 18.0% female. Furthermore, Palestinian female ambassadors represented 5.8% compared to 94.2% male. Females represented 32.3% of registered engineers with the Union of Engineers while male represented 67.7%. On the other hand, in 2016, 12.4% of members of student councils in West Bank universities were females, compared to 87.6% males.
In the public sector, females represented 42.7% of civil servants, compared to 57.3% male civil servant. In the public civil sector, female Director Generals represented 11.3% of the total director generals, compared to 88.7% males in the same post.
Israeli Assault on Gaza By Numbers in 30 Days
Date posted: August 09, 2014
By Safa Agency
