ActionAid Palestine and Alianza por la Solidaridad to Mark World Refugee Day by Highlighting the Suffering of Palestinian Refugees
Occupied Palestinian Territory (oPt) – On World Refugee Day 2023, ActionAid Palestine (AAP) and Alianza por la Solidaridad (APS) mark World Refugee Day to 2023 by highlighting the plight of Palestinian refugees and their continues suffering that has remained unresolved for 75 years. We mark this day by celebrating the resilience of Palestinian refugees who work tirelessly to overcome hardship and difficulties to build better lives for themselves and their families.
AAP and APS jointly call on the international community to dedicate greater efforts to addressing the plight of Palestinian refugees by exercising pressure on Israel to respect their rights within the frameworks of International Human Rights Law (IHRL) and International Humanitarian Law (IHL), United Nation resolutions and calling on international bodies, states, donors and UN agencies to secure protection for them and fulfill their protection, humanitarian and development needs.
There are approximately 5.9 million registered Palestinian refugees living across the Middle East. Their plight is the world’s longest protracted refugee crisis, exacerbated by constant violations of IHRL and IHL by Israel characterized by displacement, violence and a systematic lack of access to basic services and other rights.
World Refugee Day this year is being marked as Palestinian refugee camps in West Bank are being exposed to significantly increased levels of Israeli military raids. On 19 June 2023, Israeli soldiers raided the Jenin Refugee Camp resulting in the killing of 5 Palestinians, including a 15-year-old boy, and the injuring of more than 91 Palestinians and 7 Israeli soldiers. Airstrikes have been used by Israel to target a densely populated area of the West Bank for the first time since 2002.
The daily suffering of Palestinian refugees in the West Bank includes dispossession and displacement as a result of illegal Israeli policies of movement restrictions, house demolitions, expropriation of Palestinian lands and other natural resources, expansion of Israeli settlements and the existence of the Separation Wall. In Gaza, Palestinian refugees survive in extreme socio-economic conditions stemming from the land, air and sea blockade imposed by Israel since 2007.
In this context, Palestine refugee women and girls face different and disproportionate forms of marginalization, discrimination, and harm based as women, as Palestinians and as refugees. These are exacerbated in crisis and emergency contexts and worsened by limited access to specialized support services.
In addition, Gender-Based Violence is co-related to increased and sustained levels of structural violence and therefore Palestinian women refugees suffer the increased incidence of GBV paired with a lack of sufficient and adequate services. This is even worse for the most marginalized women: women with disabilities, victims of human trafficking, widows, single and separated women with children or Bedouin women.
There is an urgent need for a political solution to fulfill Palestinian refugees’ rights, and to ensure their survival, protection and dignity. The needs, representation and voices of refugees - especially those of women - should be heard and taken into consideration at all stages of conflict resolution and peace processes, so that their concerns and proposals can be addressed. This is the way to achieving a fair and sustainable solution to their plight.
Background Information
ActionAid in Palestine (AAP) is a part of global federation working for social justice and gender equality and eradicate poverty in more than 45 countries around the world. AAP started its work in Palestine in 2007 to strengthen the resilience of Palestinian People as ActionAid believes that they should enjoy their rights to freedom, justice and self-determination. AAP implements a number of programs through its engagement with communities and women and youth groups seeking to empower them and enhance their influential civil and political participation to understand their rights and undertake collective activism to address the protracted rights violations resulting from the prolonged occupation of Palestine. AAP works simultaneously to enhance their leadership capacity and knowledge to practice their citizenship in holding authorities and other duty bearers to account.
For more information, please contact.
Riham Jafari
Coordinator of Advocacy and Communication in Palestine
Mobile:
+972 (0) 595242890
Office:
+972 (0) (2) 22 13 137
Email: