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

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.

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OVERVIEW

In this months briefing, we review conditions in three of twelve 'temporary' Israeli interrogation and detention centres, where Palestinian children are being held in cramped sordid conditions with inadequate food, sleeping materials and sanitation, to say nothing of family visits, education or healthcare. Torture and beatings are the norm in these facilities, even for children as young as 13 (see Case Studies).

As readers will know from previous DCI prisoner briefings, overcrowding is a real issue in permanent prisons for children. This, along with burgeoning numbers of arrests in recent Israeli crackdowns, means that Palestinian prisoners, including children, are being held for long periods of time in temporary facilities which are barely suited to overnight stays, let alone the three months endured by some minors.

Detention centres are usually located within Israeli military bases and run by soldiers. Up to 11 children are crammed into small cells of around five to six square metres, sometimes with adult detainees. Children are given food of limited nutritional value, often in inadequate quantities. A typical example is Hawara, where nine people eat a meal sufficient for two. In addition, detainees can only go to the toilet three times a day at pre-defined times. Outside those hours they are compelled to use a make-shift container or soil their clothes.

Access to recreation is provided infrequently where it is provided at all. At Atziun, prisoners can only take a 40 minute break every 13 days and at Bet El, prisoners are given 15-30 minutes once a week. Family visits are not allowed, as Palestinians are not permitted to enter Israeli military bases.

Alongside inhumane conditions, mistreatment and torture are rife throughout the detention and interrogation process, even for prisoners as young as 13-14 years old. In one appalling incident, three young teenagers from Hebron were picked up, blindfolded, beaten, threatened and detained overnight, before being released the next day.

Overall, the situation in detention centres is a stark indicator that the Israeli judicial system is unable to cope with the consequences of increasingly repressive laws, including the option to detain children without charges (12 days) and the use of administrative detention orders against minors. Although some children have received an early release from Atzion to ease pressure on resources, many others remain confined in unbearable conditions, in contravention of Israeli military orders, where torture and abuse by guards represent just one of a daily roll-call of abuses.

TEMPORARY DETENTION?

Hawara Detention Centre

On 5 May 2003, the DCI lawyer visited Hawara detention centre near Nablus, which holds 85 detainees, including 47 administrative detainees and 15 children under-18. After repeated calls to the legal advisor at the camp, a two hour wait at the gates and a minute search, the lawyer was able to enter the camp to look at detention conditions and visit three child detainees. The lawyer was prevented from seeing other child detainees on the pretext that he had not submitted a list of names for prior approval.

Conditions in the detention centre were extremely poor, not only physically, but mentally, as prisoners are continually subjected to abuse and inhumane treatment by the guards. As a protest, prisoners set fire to their mattresses on 1 May.

Some of the worst features of Hawara are overcrowding, poor treatment and a lack of distinction between child and adult prisoners. Around 9 prisoners are held in each room of about 6 square metres. Most of them sleep on the floor due to a severe lack of mattresses. Sleeping materials are old and torn, and unhygienic.

Health and nutrition standards are also appalling. Most prisoners are suffering from skin problems as a result of sleeping on the floor or on the mattresses. There is no on-site doctor, although in emergencies, prisoners are taken to hospital. This happened on the day of the mattress burning, when a 17 year old prisoner had breathing problems. He was taken to Ma'ir hospital in Kufr Saba and given oxygen, although he returned 6 hours later and was given no further treatment - not even an inhaler. At meal times, each cell receives enough food for around two people, not nine. The food lacks nutrients and is of poor quality.

Prisoners are also kept locked up for long periods of time and are not allowed to take a daily recess. Indeed, they are only allowed to go to the bathroom three times a day for 10 minutes. In this time, prisoners have to bathe, although the prisoner administration does not provide hot water, soap, or shampoo. Prisoners are not allowed to go to the bathroom outside these hours, and some of them have had to urinate in their clothes or in a carton inside their room.

Bet El Detention Centre

On 21 April, a DCI lawyer visited Bet El military base just outside Ramallah, where children are being kept for long periods of time in unsuitable temporary detention facilities. Among other privations, children are denied family visits, kept in cramped conditions - 11 prisoners held in five square metress - and often alongside adult prisoners. Recreation is limited to a 30 minute break just once a week. The youngest of the children, is 14 years old.

DCI has taken affidavits from six of the children, at least two of whom have been subjected to positional torture, or shabeh.

Munir Zahran from Deir Abu-Misha'l, is 14 years old:

"I was arrested on the 3rd of April (2002) and then they decided to detain me, pending trial. According to the court decision I was supposed to be transferred to another centre, but until now this has not happened. The detention circumstances are very hard. We are with 11 detainees in this very small room of a bit more than 5 m². There are two adults being held with us. We sleep on 4 mattresses and share 4 blankets. We are allowed to use the bathroom three times a day only and we can take a shower once a week. We are given a recess once a week of 15-30 minutes. The administration does not provide any goods, or clothes. We do not have anything to spend our time with, just we sit and talk. Sometimes we are given Hebrew newspapers, but we cannot read Hebrew. I need to be transferred immediately."

Munir was sentenced to 11 months and a 22 month suspended sentence on 18 May 2003. The Judge ordered that he should be transferred immediately, although at the time of writing, he is still held at Hawara.

Ibraheem Mohammed Salam ElHajj is 15 years old and still awaiting trial;

"I am giving this affidavit to transfer me from Bet El to another detention centre. I was taken on 18/3 and on the 1st of April they decided to detain me, pending trial. The situation is unbearable. We are in a very small room with 11 people: we sleep on 4 mattresses: every three detainees share a blanket and a mattress. We are allowed to use the bathroom only three times a day at specific times. And only once a week are we allowed to take a 30 minutes recess. There is nothing in the room, we spend our time sitting and talking: there are no books etc. Regarding the food, we get 3 meals a day, but it is of bad quality and it is not enough either. The prison guards and administration treat us very badly. They force us into shabeh position by tying our hands up and one lef and then making us face the wall. I want to leave this detention centre as soon as possible."

Atziun Detention Centre

On 8 April 2003, a DCI lawyer visited Atziun detention centre in the Hebron area, which houses 115 detainees, including 14 children. Overcrowding is again a problem, with children sharing a cell of some six metres squared.

As in other detention centres, food lacks nutritional value and is insufficient for the number of prisoners. On subsequent days, five and seven loaves of bread were distributed to feed 65 detainees. When asked for additional provisions, the guards produced only stale bread.

Meanwhile, children can only use the bathroom three times a day, at certain designated times. This caused extreme humiliation and upset recently when inmates suffered stomach upsets and diarrhoea as a result of the poor quality food. A number of the detainees called to the guards to be allowed to use the toilets and hammered on the door of their cell. The guards responded by beating the prisoners. This meant that a number of detainees were forced to defecate into their clothes or into makeshift receptacles. The detainees were refused access to washing or showing facilities.

As well as temporary inmates, awaiting trial, the detention centre is also housing prisoners who have been sentenced already and should have been transferred to permanent facilities with special provisions for children. The overcrowding has reached such proportions that some children with lighter sentences have been released early. These include Bayan Najajira (see briefing 13), aged 14, who was arrested on 24/3/2003 and sentenced to 3 months imprisonment; Khadar Abu Sill, aged 16, who was arrested 19/2/2003 and sentenced to 8 months imprisonment; and Awda Abu Za'nuna, aged 15, arrested 1/2/2003, also sentenced to 8 months.

CASE STUDIES

As the cases below illustrate, abuses of human rights at these facilities are rife and include: arbitrary beatings; use of torture; denial of access to basic sanitation facilities and inadequate provision of sustenance. Threats of sexual assault also constitute a frequent and worrying trend.

Case One; Wajdi Najajira, aged 17

Wajdi is in the 11th grade at school and was arrested on 24/4/2003 at 3.00 am at his family home in Hebron, West Bank. IDF soldiers proceeded to search the family home and handcuffed and blindfolded Wajdi. He sustained injuries to his left wrist from the restraints.

Wajdi was then taken to Atziun Detention Centre. In transit to the facility, he was beaten by IDF soldiers with the butts of their weapons, threatened and verbally abused.

On arrival at Atziun, Wajdi was interrogated by a member of the Israeli Security Services. The official asked him about various activities, which Wajdi denied. The official then beat Wajdi and verbally abused him.

Wajdi was interrogated for a second time by an official claiming to be a Shabak officer. The officer produced a document in Hebrew and asked him to sign it. Wajdi refused stating that he did not understand the document. He was beaten again for refusing to sign the document and, under extreme duress, he relented and signed the document.

Wajdi continues to be held in a six square metre cell with 11 other detainees, all less than 18 years old. Use of toilet facilities is restricted to three 15 minute visits per day. Wajdi has also been denied access to medical attention despite a serious nose problem for which he was due to undergo surgery prior to his detention.

Case Two; Nidal Akram Moussa, 13

Thirteen year old Nidal lives in Hebron with his family and was arrested on 8/4/2003 by IDF soldiers. The soldiers accused Nidal and two of his friends - Jihad and Lafi - of throwing stones. The three children were spat upon, blindfolded, beaten and threatened with sexual abuse.

The children were then taken to the Kiriat Arba'a settlement and held in a military compound. All three were questioned by a guard as to whether they had been throwing stones, which they denied. The IDF changed shift at midnight and the new arrivals attempted to beat the children, but were prevented by the guard. The soldiers threw stones at the children.

The children were brought food in the early hours of the morning but they were too afraid to eat because they suspected that the food might have been poisoned. An IDF soldier also entered the cage in which they were being held and threatened them with a knife.

The children were released at 14.00 the following day.

Case Three; Update on Bayan Najajira, (now released).

"I was arrested at the family home at 2 a.m. The family - including the children - was forced to stand outside in the rain as they searched our home. I was forced into a jeep and beaten on the head, back and legs with rifle butts. The IDF soldiers threatened to demolish our home and sexually assault me."

Blindfolded and restrained, Bayan was taken to an Israeli settlement and onto Atziun Detention Centre where he was held in solitary confinement for five days. Bayan was then transferred to a six square metre room containing fourteen other detainees.

Food of poor nutritional value was provided in insufficient quantities and access to sanitary facilities was denied. Bayan's parents were not allowed to visit him and he received no access to education during his detention. Whilst in captivity Bayan's health deteriorated and he required, but did not receive, medical attention for his legs (a result of the beating).

On 7/4/2003 Bayan was sentenced at Beit El Military Court to 3-months imprisonment and a 9-month suspended sentence. He was released prior to serving his full term but not for reasons of clemency. The escalating number of arrests has compelled Israeli authorities to release prisoners under the age of 18 charged with more minor offences.