Palestinian Foreign Ministry: Palestinian women are being exposed to all forms of violence by the occupation authorities

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry has affirmed that Palestinian women have been subjected to all forms of violence, discrimination, torture and persecution by the Israeli occupation authorities and settlers, including intentional killing, arbitrary detention, forced displacement, denial of access to basic services, and other forms of torture and abuse.

In a statement on Saturday marking the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the ministry said “while the world is celebrating this day it ignores the genocide that have been committed against the Palestinian women and against all our people since the beginning of last October, as more than 3.250 women have been martyred as a result of the Israeli aggression on Gaza Strip, and more than 2.056 have become widows.”

According to the ministry, the occupation forces internally and forcibly displaced more than 1.7 million Palestinian men and women, including more than 788,800 women and girls, and subjected them to starvation, intimidation, and lack of water, medicine, electricity, fuel, medical treatment and health care, after they bombed them in the places of their displacement or during their displacement, including at hospitals and homes, worshiping places, schools and other shelters, as no place is safe in Gaza Strip.

The ministry clarified that women and children are suffering the most because of the aggression on Gaza. This what has been stressed by many UN institutions, experts and rapporteurs, as there are more than 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza Strip and it is expected that 5,552 women will give birth during this month and under the current catastrophic circumstances where medical service are absent which exposes their lives to danger.

However, the Ministry said, what women are suffering in Gaza Strip cannot be separated from the suffering of women and girls in the West Bank, including occupied Al-Quds (Jerusalem). Since the beginning of last month, the Israeli occupation’s crimes, attacks, and incursions into Palestinian cities, villages, and refugee camps have increased, accompanied by a massive campaign of detentions and demolition of homes and property and the use of women and children as human shields.

Hamda Mustafa