On 17 October 2024, the Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling, Gender Action for Peace and Security, the LSE Middle East Centre and the LSE Centre for Women, Peace and Security hosted the event: “Advancing Women, Peace and Security in Palestine”.
One year into Israel’s military aggression in Gaza and in light of the recent attacks in Lebanon, the event offered an important opportunity to highlight the experiences of women’s rights organisations working in Palestine and on the gendered impact of Israeli violence upon Palestinian women and girls. As of 9 October 2024, at least 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in the past year. About 70 per cent of those killed are said to be women and children.
It is crucial to ensure the voices of Palestinian women, girls and other marginalised groups are central in defining what peace and security means for Palestine and the wider region. As the UN Security Council Resolution 1325, agreed in 2000, women’s equal participation and full involvement is a vital component in the promotion of peace and security.
Amal Abusrour and Kifaya Khraim from Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling (WCLAC), a women’s rights organisation based in the West Bank, Palestine, argued that Israeli forces have been subjecting women to sexual and gender-based violence since before October 7th. Palestinian women, and men, under occupation in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and in Gaza have been the target of systematic sexual and gender-based violence. The goal has been to intimidate the Palestinian community, explicitly stigmatising and creating shame through sexual violence and assault.
WCLAC has collected testimonies from Palestinian women over the past year of the war. They identify increasing evidence of sexual violence at checkpoints, which they found often to be accompanied by robbing women of their jewellery and other possessions. They also found increasing evidence of early marriage of Palestinian girls as a response to these attacks and insecurity, also violating their rights and opportunities for education.
In October 2024, a report by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, stated that Israeli security forces have deliberately killed, detained and tortured medical personnel, targeted medical vehicles, and restricted permits to leave the territory for medical treatment. The commission concluded that “the deliberate destruction of health infrastructure providing sexual and reproductive healthcare, combined with the lack of access and availability to healthcare, is also a violation of women’s and girls’ reproductive rights and their right to life, health, human dignity and non-discrimination, as well as the crime against humanity of other inhumane acts.”
WCLAC shared the story of a pregnant woman who had to undergo a c-section without anaesthesia, and who then went on to face extreme difficulties accessing food or clean water for her and her baby.
Eva Tabbasam, Director of Gender Action for Peace and Security (GAPS), the UK’s civil society network on Women, Peace and Security, urged the international community, including the UK government, to put women at the centre of peace and security, and relief efforts in response to Israel’s military aggression in the region. “To do this they must continuously ask the question of security for whom?”
According to UN Women, “The escalation created protection crisis for all people in Gaza, elevated protection needs especially for single women, women heads of households, adolescent girls, women with disabilities, older women. Over-crowded shelters do not allow privacy for women and girls. Access to food and water is very limited, and this has severe impacts particularly for lactating women and young women. Women and girls do not have access to safe and dignified latrine and bathing facilities”
The 25th anniversary of UNSCR 1325 is next year. We must consider if it is providing a useful tool to women in Palestine to advance justice, or if we need a new UN Security Council Resolution on Women, Peace and Security to match the needs of the time.
For further information, please email info@gaps-uk.org.