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

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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INTRODUCTION

Since 2000, UNRWA has delivered emergency programming in West Bank and Gaza with the aim of protecting vulnerable refugee population from the worst effects of the countermeasures which Israel has deployed against the intifada. The first six months of 2005 have borne witness to a welcome decrease in deaths and injuries on both sides of the conflict and an end to the widespread practice of home demolitions in Gaza. T he disengagement of Israel forces from Gaza is a further welcome development and will have a major impact on the personal security and quality of life of those Palestinians living in the enclaves and in the areas bordering settlements, army bases and the so-called "Philadelphi corridor" along Gaza's border with Egypt.

However in the face of these positive developments, no improvement has been noted, or is forecast in the short-term, in the macro-economic indicators in oPt. The internal closure regime remains the biggest inhibitor of economic revival in the West Bank and the completion of the barrier's route around Jerusalem is near. Israel has marginally relaxed its restrictions on the number of workers entering Israel but no significant increase is planned in the post-disengagement era. The future potential of access to Gaza by sea and air routes remains latent.

In the light of its experience over the past five years, the Agency remains convinced, of the value of its emergency programming. Trust in the Agency among Palestinians in Gaza remains very high, as was demonstrated by a survey conducted by FAFO, the independent Norwegian research foundation, between 3 August and 9 September. Some 78 percent expressed confidence in UNRWA, compared with 24 percent for the Palestinian Legislative Council and the Palestinian Authority Council of Ministers.

UNRWA's conviction about the need for its emergency programme requires validation. In addition to the usual quantitative information, in this report the Agency reviews the changes in the situation over the past six months and includes the results of a number of focus groups and personal interviews. This research was undertaken by external researchers in mid-2005 and their results vividly convey the positive impact which emergency programming has had, and continues to have, on the lives of Palestine refugees in this transitional period.

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The Government of Japan and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) have signed an agreement, under which the Government of Japan will contribute 500 million yen (around US$4.76 million) for UNRWA’s food assistance programme benefiting needy Palestine refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, the Syrian Arab Republic, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

The agreement, which was signed by Japan’s Ambassador to Jordan Mr. Koichi Obata and UNRWA's Commissioner-General Mr. Peter Hansen, will enable UNRWA to distribute wheat flour and pulses to needy refugee families registered with UNRWA as Special Hardship Cases.

Japan, a major donor of cash and food assistance to UNRWA, has also been a generous contributor to projects implemented by the Agency in the five fields of operations. Recently the Japanese Government announced a $15 million contribution to UNRWA’s Emergency Appeal for 2005. This will enable UNRWA to implement a large-scale rehousing project in Rafah, Gaza, for refugees whose homes were demolished by the Israeli military and to create jobs in the Gaza Strip, where unemployment is extremely high.

The Japanese Government’s contributions to UNRWA’s regular budget, food aid and projects over the last 10 years has amounted to more than $160 million.

UNRWA provides basic education, health, relief and social services for more than 4.1 million Palestine refugees registered with the Agency.

The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, paid a visit to the West Bank operations of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) today to lay a wreath at the memorial to UNRWA staff who have lost their lives in the duty of the United Nations and to publicly bid farewell to Peter Hansen, UNRWA’s outgoing Commissioner-General.

Mr. Annan, accompanied by his wife, laid a wreath at the monument to Kamal Salem and Iain Hook who were both killed in separate incidents in the West Bank in 2002 while on duty for UNRWA.

The Secretary-General then addressed a large group of UNRWA staff to express his profound respect for the courage and devotion they bring to their jobs in very difficult and sometimes dangerous situations. Mr. Annan then took questions from UNRWA’s staff.

Mr. Annan also thanked Peter Hansen for the nine years of service he has given to the Agency. In a recent letter to all UNRWA staff the Secretary General described the Commissioner-General as “not only a careful and efficient manager, but also an inspiring leader, a persuasive advocate and a consummate diplomat with acute political antennae”.

Mr. Annan’s letter said: “No one could have been more wholeheartedly devoted to the interests of the Palestine refugees, or more courageous in championing them, particularly during the last four years of renewed conflict and tragic violence. He has made many friends, and he has had the courage also to make some enemies.”

Mr. Hansen then accompanied the Secretary General, along with other heads of UN agencies in the region, to visits with the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah.

Meanwhile Mrs. Annan visited the Ramallah Women’s Training Centre (RWTC), a college run by UNRWA since the 1960s to give training and career opportunities to female refugees. The Secretary- General’s wife met and spoke with students at the college’s graphic design unit and those studying nursing, ceramics, jewellery-making and pre-school teacher training.

At the college Mrs. Annan had lunch with Mrs. Karen Koning AbuZayd, Deputy Commissioner- General of UNRWA, Anders Fange UNRWA’s Director of Operations in the West Bank, Timothy Rothermel, Special Representative of the UNDP Administrator, Dan Rohrmann, UNICEF Special Representative, Alia Al-Yassir, UNIFEM Programme Coordinator and Principal Jarbawi of the RWTC.

Preface:

UNRWA's task of providing services to a population of over 4 million refugees in a volatile environment is an enormous challenge. This plan examines how to maintain the quality and efficiency of basic education, health and social services, while seeking ways to better promote human development and self-reliance, including through an extended microfinance programme, a strategy for camp up-grading and increased opportunities for vocational training. It also considers possible changes in the political and economic environment of the West Bank and Gaza Strip that could drastically alter the operational context of the Agency in those areas.

This plan is not simply an internally drafted blue-print, rather it is a framework that has been informed by a process of intensified dialogue with stake-holders, before, during and after the holding of a major international conference in Geneva in June 2004. It is not a prescriptive plan. It is an outline meant to accommodate changing realities and needs on the ground and a reference point for further dialogue and onward planning.

I view this effort as a testimony to the commitment of UNRWA and its working partners to help the Palestine refugee population live in dignity and achieve their ambitions for self-reliance and development.

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