1_March 2019, Ramallah – On the occasion of the International Women’s Day (8 March), a week-long joint campaign “My Rights, Our Power” was launched today in Palestine to raise awareness on women’s fundamental human rights. The joint effort, with participation from over 30 national and international partners from civil society organizations, media outlets, and international development agencies, targets youth, women, and men in various geographic areas in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza to promote women’s human rights in Palestine.

The campaign comes at a crucial moment when the anticipated adoption of the Family Protection Bill is at a standstill, raising concerns among national and international stakeholders about the consequences of such delay on safeguarding women’s fundamental human rights in Palestine. According to the Palestine report of the International Men and Gender Equality Survey (IMAGES), nearly one in five Palestinian men (17 percent) surveyed said they had perpetrated act of physical intimate partner violence against female partners, while 21 per cent of women surveyed reported having experienced such violence.

“Family violence, usually committed by a family member who has social or economic power over others in the family, causes enormous pain and suffering to all members of the family, especially the women and children,” said a spokesperson from civil society, which has vigorously initiated the development of the Family Protection Bill (FPB), and has strongly pushed its adoption since 2004.

“The violation of women’s human rights manifests in various levels and should be also understood from economic, cultural, and social aspects,” the spokesperson added, highlighting the lack of opportunities and freedom of choice, as well as limited access to justice and services that women in Palestine still experience.

The joint campaign aims to raise awareness of the general public, especially youth, women, and men on women’s fundamental rights in line with international standards and embedded in the Family Protection Bill draft endorsed by the previous Cabinet at the end of December 2018. Five key messages, addressing women’s right to a life free of violence, right to achieve justice and seek help in case of violation of such life, as well as the right to equal opportunities and right to make one’s own choices, will be distributed through various channels such as radio, social media, helpline (121), outreach activities, and on-site events. The closing event of the joint campaign will take place on 8 March in Jerusalem and will celebrate women’s achievements using TED-style talks, followed by art performances.

“My Rights, Our Power” joint campaign is part of the global International Women’s Day 2019 campaign under the theme of “Think equal, build smart, innovate for change”. The theme focuses on innovative ways in which we can advance gender equality and the empowerment of women, particularly in the areas of social protection systems, access to public services and sustainable infrastructure, echoing the theme of the 63rd session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW 63) taking place in New York on 11-22 March 2019.

The participating organizations of the “My Rights, Our Power” are (in alphabetical order): 17 Palestinian women’s organizations represented by Al-Muntada (coalition), British Consulate-General, Business Women Forum, CARE International, Consulate General of Sweden, Consulate General of Belgium, EUPOL COPPS, EU Representative Office, FAO, General Union of Palestinian Women, Government of Japan, CowaterSogema/GROW Project, International Labour Organization, Italian Agency for Development Cooperation, Ma’an TV, MIFTAH, Netherlands Representative Office, Nisaa FM, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Palestinian Working Woman Society for Development, Palestinian Family Planning and Protection Association, Representative Office of Canada, Representative Office of Denmark, SAWA, Sawasya II, Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation, Sports for Life, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Representative Office of Norway, UNDP, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNICEF, UNOPS, UN Women, Women's Centre for Legal Aid and Counseling, Women’s Studies Center.

For more information, please contact Eunjin Jeong at UN Women via eunjin.jeong@unwomen.org or 059 2321 308, Majd Beltaji at UNESCO via m.beltaji@unesco.org or 059 4501 506.

Mr. President,

We thank France for organizing this important meeting and extend our appreciation to the Chef de Cabinet of the Secretary General, the Executive Director of UN Women, the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security and the Secretary-General of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie for their efforts and important briefings.

The issue before us is of relevance not only for half the planet, but to all, given the role and contribution of women in the fields of peace and security and the untapped potential that could be unleashed by mainstreaming their participation. Since the adoption by consensus of resolution 1325 by this Council, a lot has happened, and yet we are still far from the goal of full and equal participation, including in the prevention and resolution of conflicts and in peace-building, and from ensuring the protection and empowerment of women. Gender equality and non-discrimination remain prerequisites for the fulfilment of the purposes and principles of this organization and all of our lofty, collective commitments, including the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The State of Palestine welcomes the Secretary General’s report and his commitment to implementing the women and peace and security agenda, including by placing gender at the centre of his prevention platform and surge in diplomacy. We appreciate all efforts by the UN in this regard, including by UN Women, OHCHR and UNDP, notably in the field of human rights, capacity building, employment and rule of law. We urge UN bodies, notably those operating in Palestine, including the Special Representative, to intensify their engagement and collaboration with women organizations.

Mr. President,

I wish to highlight some of Palestine’s own important efforts in this regard. The Palestinian women’s movement is one of the oldest and strongest in the region and beyond, with institutional and representative structures established as early as the 19th century. Within the PLO, the General Union of Palestinian Women was among the first unions to be established. A coordination of women frameworks within PLO political parties and other organizations has also been established as the “Women’s Affairs Technical Committee” in the aftermath of the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference.

There have been many achievements thereafter. Among them: In 2012, Palestine inaugurated a High-Level National Committee for the implementation of resolution 1325, led by the Ministry of Women Affairs in partnership with relevant Ministries and NGOs. In 2016, the State of Palestine was among the 68 countries and areas that adopted a National Action Plan on women, peace and security.

This Action Plan (2017-2019), adopted by both the Government and civil society organizations, identifies three primary objectives: 1. ensuring protection for women and girls both domestically and in the face of the Israeli occupation; 2. ensuring accountability through national and international mechanisms, with a particular focus on crimes and violations committed by the occupation; and 3. furthering women’s political participation in decision making at the national and international level. The State of Palestine also joined core IHL and human rights instruments, including CEDAW, without reservations. Women’s participation and empowerment are also important and cross-cutting objectives in the context of the National Policy Agenda (2017-2022).

We are, however, conscious that, despite all these efforts, much more work remains to be done. Only in 2009 was a women elected to the highest executive body of the PLO. Quotas are still decisive in allowing women’s election to Parliament and local councils. And while women organizations were among the strongest advocates of national reconciliation, they have been unfairly absent from reconciliation talks. The relevant legislative framework applicable in Palestine is also outdated and must be revised to ensure consistency with Palestine’s international commitments and obligations and avail women the protection and rights they are entitled to and the opportunities they deserve.

Mr. President,

The Palestinian women’s movement since its establishment over a century ago pursued the struggle on two fronts – the struggle for the independence of Palestine and the struggle for women’s rights and empowerment – a dual struggle the movement continues to pursue to this day. The Israeli occupation remains the main source of the violations of our women’s rights and their vulnerability and violence against their person. We have repeatedly called for protection of the Palestinian people, especially women and children. We have also called for accountability, a key element of resolution 1325, the first resolution to address the disproportionate and unique impact of armed conflict on women, as the only way to put an end to violations and crimes.

While Palestine stands ready to do its part to advance women rights and the role of women in the fields of peace and security, it is clear that the enjoyment of these rights in our country necessitates ending the Israeli occupation. We will thus continue to work for an end of the occupation and true progress on the path to independence, justice and peace, with the equal and full involvement of women, leading to an independent State of Palestine ensuring human rights for all its citizens without discrimination.

On the occasion of the ICC Prosecutor’s Office to Palestine, the Palestinian Women Coalition of UNSCR 1325, which consists of twelve different Palestinian women’s organisations, is urging the Prosecutor’s Office to take concrete actions towards investigating war crimes committed against Palestinians. The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom remains deeply concerned with the complete impunity of Israeli war crimes and firmly supports the Coalition’s call for a just accountability mechanism for Palestinian victims. WILPF also calls on the international community to recognise and fully support Palestinian women’s organisations substantial role in paving the paths to justice, accountability and peace. Read the statement of the Palestinian Women Coalition of UNSCR 1325 below.

We, the Palestinian Women Coalition of UNSCR 1325,welcome the visit of the delegation of the ICC Prosecutor’s Office as a step in the right direction. But we are deeply disappointed that the purpose of this visit was restricted to preliminary examination, while Palestinian victims of Israeli war crimes, including women, continue to suffer and urgently await justice and an end to Israel impunity.

We do not understand the decision to exclude the Gaza Strip from this visit, when Gaza has been the site of the most war crimes and where women have been most systematically impacted by Israeli collective punishment policies; a prolonged imposed siege and a severe humanitarian deterioration resulting from Israeli military aggressions .

We are further disappointed that women who have been systematically impacted, and their women’s organisations, have been excluded from the delegation’s agenda.

We call upon all future delegations of the ICC Prosecutor’s Office to include on their agenda meetings with women’s organisations and women who have experienced direct and indirect impacts of Israeli crimes.

We, the Palestinian Women Coalition of UNSCR 1325, have seen in UNSCR 1325, 2242, and other UN Resolutions a commitment to hold the Israeli perpetrators accountable for their war crimes.

We look to the ICC as the most important mechanism to end impunity for all war crimes committed, finally bringing justice for the Palestinian people. Yet, we are very concerned that the preliminary examinations will be an endless process.

Therefore, we urge, Ms. Fatou Bensouda, the Prosecutor of the ICC, to conclude the preliminary examination and move to investigations into Israeli war crimes, bringing justice to Palestinians.

We have paid the price of non-accountability and impunity of Israeli war crimes for too long. “Delaying justice is justice denied.”

Palestinian Women Coalition of UNSCR 1325: The General Union of Palestinian Women (GUPW), the Women’s Affairs Technical Committee (WATC), Palestinian Working Woman Society for Development (PWWSD), MIFTAH, Filastinyat, Women Media and Development (TAM), Women Stu Dies Center, Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counseling (WACLAC), the National, YWCA of Palestine, Center for Women’s Legal Research and Consulting (CWLRC), the Culture and Free thought Association(CWLRC) and Women’s Affairs Center (GWAC).

Occupied Palestine

October 11, 2016

There is a Bedouin village - breezeblock shanties built on sand dunes - in the north of the Gaza Strip that has been overlooked by the army watchtowers of the Jewish settlement of Nisanit. On most nights during the intifada, soldiers in these watchtowers fired down into the alleys of the village, keeping everyone hemmed into their homes at night. On occasion, children, disorientated and panicked by the firing, had been known to run out of their shacks and into the line of fire.

There were many randomly-firing watchtowers surrounding the Israeli settlements in Gaza. They have killed hundreds of Palestinians, both militant and innocent, and are hated by the local population. Their removal this week, along with the settlements themselves, will rightly be a moment of celebration. But just because the most visible and oppressive signs of the Israeli occupation will be gone, no one should be under the illusion that Gaza will cease to be the world's largest prison camp.

Last week, the Israeli cabinet has decided that it would maintain troops on the border between Gaza and Egypt for the foreseeable future - along the so-called Philadelphia corridor. It was from a watchtower on this border that peace activist Tom Hurndall was shot in 2003. The same cabinet meeting also decided that Israel must continue to control who enters and exits Gaza through Egypt and proposed a new border crossing at Kerem Shalom where Israel, Gaza and Egypt meet. This busy cabinet meeting also decided that it would allow Gaza to have three miles of territorial waters - after that Israel would control the sea. It had already been decided that Israel will continue to control Gaza's airspace.

Earlier this year, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the guardian of international humanitarian law, sent the Israeli government a confidential position paper making clear that the removal of the Israeli troops and settlers from Gaza will not end the occupation. The paper stated: "Israel will retain significant control over the Gaza Strip, which will enable it to exercise key elements of authority. Thus ... it seems at this stage the Gaza Strip will remain occupied for the purposes of international humanitarian law."

It is a view backed by the highly respected Harvard Programme on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research. In a legal brief prepared for the donor community, the programme's director wrote: "The partial redeployment of Israel's military presence in and around the territory is not the controlling factor in international law to determine the end of occupation ... The end of occupation rests essentially on the termination of the military control of the Occupying Power over the Government affairs of the occupied population that limits the people's right to self determination."

Why this matters is made clear in the disengagement resolution passed by the Israeli government last summer. That states: "The completion of the [disengagement] plan will serve to dispel claims regarding Israel's responsibility for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip." But if it is still the occupying power, then in law Israel has very specific responsibility for the welfare of the population of Gaza. If the occupation is seen to have ended, then it can wash its hands of all 1.3 million of them.

At the moment Israel talks of improving conditions at the notorious Erez crossing from Gaza into Israel, where thousands of Palestinian cheap labourers are routinely humiliated and crushed in pens for hours before they can get into Israel to work. But in the longer term it seems Israel wants to lock up Gaza and throw away the key. Shaul Mofaz, the Minister of Defence, and Ehud Olmert, the Deputy Prime Minister, have both gone on record this summer as saying that no Palestinian workers will be allowed into Israel from 2008. The wording of the disengagement bill states there are to be no labourers "in the longer term".

At the G8 summit the international community promised to invest £1.72bn in Gaza. But without access to the outside world, these funds will do little to improve life or create permanent jobs. If Gaza is to feel the benefits of disengagement, the fishermen need to be able to fish, merchants to travel and import and crucially, after 38 years of enforced integration with Israel's economy, labourers will still need to work on the building sites of Tel Aviv and Ashkelon.

Otherwise the watchtowers of Gaza will only have moved a few hundred metres and no doubt will soon fire down once more on Palestinians - both militant and innocent.

Paul McCann was spokesman for the UN's Palestinian refugee agency in Gaza from 2000-2005.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has today protested to the Israeli Government at the ongoing closure of the Erez Crossing into the Gaza Strip. The closure, which began on Tuesday 31 August, seriously damages UNRWA's ability to carry out its humanitarian mandate in the occupied Palestinian territory.

In an unprecedented and serious development, the Israeli authorities have barred Peter Hansen, UNRWA's Commissioner-General and an Under-Secretary General of the United Nations, from leaving Gaza to carry out his duties in the West Bank. It is unheard of for the executive head of a UN agency to have his freedom of movement flagrantly curtailed by a member state of the UN in this way.

The Israeli authorities have stated that Erez has been closed because of the discovery of explosives on a Palestinian worker using the labourer's crossing point at Erez. Despite the fact that the Palestinian workers utilize an entirely different passage through Erez from that used by UN staff with diplomatic visas (issued by the Government of Israel), despite the fact that UN staff each have a United Nations-issue Laissez Passer (UNLP) identification, despite the fact that no international staff member has ever been implicated in any security matter, despite the fact that there has never been a case in which a false UNLP has been presented to the Israeli authorities at Erez and despite the fact that UNRWA is performing work (using funds contributed by members of the United Nations) that would otherwise fall to the Occupying Power, the Israeli authorities have nonetheless refused to open Erez to UN traffic.

Peter Hansen said: "I fail to see any rational reason - and we have not been offered any - for this unacceptable disrespect for international law and just common decency. The Agency's ability to carry out its essential humanitarian operations is being seriously undermined."

As a signatory to the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, and to specific agreements between UNRWA and Israel, the Government of Israel is again failing to live up to its obligations under international law to allow freedom of movement for UN personnel.