Executive Summary
Elderly women in Gaza represent one of the most vulnerable and least visible populations affected by Israel’s ongoing genocide and the collapse of humanitarian conditions. While older women have historically faced structural marginalization, these vulnerabilities have been dramatically intensified since October 2023. The destruction of civilian infrastructure, displacement of populations, and collapse of healthcare and sanitation systems have disproportionately affected elderly women, who rely heavily on continuous care and physical accessibility.
This policy paper draws on testimonies collected by MIFTAH from displaced women aged 54 to 97 across the Gaza Strip. The findings reveal extreme levels of dependency, systemic exclusion from humanitarian aid systems, and severe physical and psychological deterioration.
All women are fully reliant on humanitarian assistance and unable to walk independently. The majority report starvation, lack of access to healthcare, absence of sanitation facilities, and untreated chronic illnesses. These conditions reflect a structural failure in humanitarian protection systems and the absence of age-sensitive response mechanisms.
To view the Full Policy Paper as PDF
Elderly Women in Gaza: Systemic Neglect Under Genocidal Conditions
Date posted: May 25, 2026
By MIFTAH
Executive Summary
Elderly women in Gaza represent one of the most vulnerable and least visible populations affected by Israel’s ongoing genocide and the collapse of humanitarian conditions. While older women have historically faced structural marginalization, these vulnerabilities have been dramatically intensified since October 2023. The destruction of civilian infrastructure, displacement of populations, and collapse of healthcare and sanitation systems have disproportionately affected elderly women, who rely heavily on continuous care and physical accessibility.
This policy paper draws on testimonies collected by MIFTAH from displaced women aged 54 to 97 across the Gaza Strip. The findings reveal extreme levels of dependency, systemic exclusion from humanitarian aid systems, and severe physical and psychological deterioration.
All women are fully reliant on humanitarian assistance and unable to walk independently. The majority report starvation, lack of access to healthcare, absence of sanitation facilities, and untreated chronic illnesses. These conditions reflect a structural failure in humanitarian protection systems and the absence of age-sensitive response mechanisms.
To view the Full Policy Paper as PDF
The Gendered Impact of Forced Displacement on Palestinian Women
Date posted: April 30, 2026
By MIFTAH
Executive Summary
Forced displacement remains a central mechanism of Israel’s settler-colonial project in Palestine, operating as a long-term strategy to reconfigure demographic and geographic realities. Since 2024, intensified Israeli operations in the northern West Bank particularly in Jenin, Tulkarm, Tubas, and Nablus have resulted in the forced displacement of approximately 40,000 Palestinians and the widespread destruction of homes and infrastructure. [1]
These outcomes are not incidental, but consequences that are structurally embedded within Israel’s expansionist policies. Displacement is a continuous and long-standing strategy that has persisted since the Nakba of 1948, aimed at uprooting the indigenous Palestinian population from their land and reshaping geographic and demographic spaces in accordance with a logic of displacement and replacement. Within this historical context, the current waves of forced displacement targeting Palestinian refugee camps in the northern West Bank cannot be understood as temporary security measures or isolated events. Rather, they represent an advanced phase in a prolonged and systematic colonial policy of exclusion, intended to empty the camps of their inhabitants and undermine their political and legal significance as living testimony to the Palestinian refugee question and the right of return. Refugee camps, in this sense, are not merely sites of humanitarian concern, but political spaces embodying the unresolved question of return.
To view the Full Policy Paper as PDF
Legalizing Occupation: New Israeli Measures in the West Bank
Date posted: February 25, 2026
By MIFTAH
Executive Summary
On February 15, the government of Israel approved a process to register land in the occupied West Bank as Israeli “state property.” The decision builds on a cabinet resolution introduced in May of 2025 that established the framework for renewed land settlement proceedings on Palestinian land.
Implemented for the first time since Israel’s occupation of the West Bank in 1967, this process enables Israeli authorities to declare land ‘state property’ when Palestinian ownership cannot be formally proven; a standard difficult for many Palestinians to meet. Even when landownership can be met, expropriative policies such as the Absentee Property Law allows Israel to confiscate Palestinian property and sell it to Israelis. A total of NIS 244.1 million has been allocated for this program, which has been stated to continue for decades. Israeli Government Resolution No. 3559 sets a first-phase objective of registering 15% of previously unregulated land within five years. [1]
This development follows the Israeli cabinet’s February 8th approval of a series of measures that expand Israeli control over land administration and acquisition in the West Bank, undermining the Palestinian Authority (PA) and amounting to de facto annexation. The details of the measures have not been released to the public, only communicated through a press release by government ministers.
To view the Full Policy Paper as PDF
