Empowerment and Protection - Stories of Human Security Oct. 2014 | Page 42

IN NUMBERS

Occupied
Palestinian
Territory

MINORS IN CUSTODY
OF ISRAELI SECURITY FORCES

PEOPLE DISPLACED
DUE TO HOUSE DEMOLITIONS

192

AREA C

769

JULY 2014, WEST BANK
(B'TSELEM 2014)

Background
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been a feature of the global
landscape for almost 100 years. For the purpose of this chapter,
only a brief timeline of events can be outlined.b This chapter only
addresses the human security situation of Palestinians in the
Occupied Palestinian Territory, and does not include the 1,694
million Palestinians living under direct Israeli rule and with Israeli
citizenship in the territories that have been with the State of Israel
since 1948, nor does it include the approximately two million
Palestinian refugees living in camps in Jordan, the 442,000 in
Lebanon and the 499,000 in Syria.1
b Many accounts of these historical events are contested.

The first Arab-Israeli war in 1948 resulted in the
expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians.2 In
the subsequent war of 1967, which lasted only six
days, Israel seized East Jerusalem and the West
Bank from Jordan, Gaza and the Sinai from Egypt
and the Golan Heights from Syria. This marked the
beginning of Israel’s ongoing military occupation of
the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and its unilateral
illegal annexation of East Jerusalem. Another war
in 1973 failed to change this, and uprisings by the
Palestinians against the Israeli occupation in 1987
(the nonviolent First Intifada) and in 2000 (the
violent Second Intifada) were equally unsuccessful.
In 2005, the Israeli army and settlers unilaterally
evacuated the Gaza Strip. Since June 2007, the Strip
– which has a population density of
4,657 per square kilometre – has been under
constant blockade by land, air and sea.
In December 2008, in response to rocket fire, but
also at a time when a new cease-fire was being
negotiated, Israel attacked Hamas in the Gaza
Strip, mostly by aerial bombardment on a captive
population. Nearly 1,400 people were killed in
just 22 days.3 Another major attack took place
in November 2012, and more recently and most
destructively in July and August 2014, through the
Israeli army’s operation ‘Protective Edge’ in the
42 stories of Human Security | Palestine

SETTLERS

EAST JERUSALEM

121

438,088
WEST BANK, EAST JERUSALEM
(B'TSELEM 2012)

control. This area includes the Jordan valley, most
of the water and many other resources, and many
Israeli settlements. Areas A, B, and C are separated
physically by a system of separation walls and
around 450 military checkpoints/borders.7 In
2002, Israel began the construction of the so-called
Separation Wall. Some 85 percent of the wall runs
inside the West Bank, with the result that 11,000
Palestinians need permits to live in their homes as
Israel treats them as falling outside the West Bank.8

Gaza Strip. Every man, woman and child in the
Gaza Strip – some 1.7 million people – have been
directly affected by the conflict. The bombardment
and military ground operations caused the death
of 2,153, of whom some 1,480 are believed to be
civilians, including 504 Palestinian children. The
damage to public infrastructure was unprecedented,
affecting electricity, clean water and healthcare.4

Oslo’s legacy

The Oslo Accords in 1993 and 1995, which
allowed for the return of many leading exiles,
and the creation of a ‘Palestinian Authority’, were
supposed to bring about an end to the occupation
and the establishment of an independent Palestinian
state by May 1999. Despite these accords and the
official peace process that they initiated, the Israeli
state has remained in total control of Palestinian
lives. This has created a continuing situation of
minimal human security for the entire Palestinian
population, and in the case of Gaza, an absence of
human security to the extent that the population
barely survives.5 With nearly half a million people
displaced by the latest Israeli attacks, their survival is
even more precarious.6

Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip
are severed from each other with almost total
restrictions on access to Jerusalem and to the
Gaza Strip. The restrictions on movement have
fragmented the Palestinian people to such an extent
that many are no longer aware that they share the
same concerns.

LAND OF WEST BANK ISOLATED
BY THE SEPARATION WALL

11.9%
WEST BANK (B'TSELEM 2012)

JAN-SEPT 2014 (UNOCHA 2014)

UNEMPLOYMENT

23%
IN 2013
(OPT) (PCBS 2014)

of fear, especially in the Gaza Strip. Nevertheless,
at the time of writing, an historic reconciliation
between Fatah and Hamas has taken place, with a
unity government sworn in on 2 June 2014.11

Over-securitisation

Another negative legacy of the Oslo accords has
been the militarisation of Palestinian society, which
was almost entirely without even small arms until
1993, the year that marked the advent of the official
peace process and the ’return’ of many exiled
Palestinians. One of the major components of these
accords was the establishment of a large number
of security services, including police, preventive
security, intelligence, and marines. This led to a
rapid proliferation in the amount and use of arms.9
Ironically, the security services are not there so
much for the protection of Palestinian security, as
for the protection of Israeli securityc, although Israel
as the occupying power should be responsible for
security of individual Palestinians.10

Amongst the legacies of Oslo has been the creation
of so-called ‘security areas’, which directly impact
the freedom of movement for every Palestinian
and thereby their access to health, education, water
and other necessities. The West Bank has been
divided internally into a patchwork of different
security zones: Area A, Palestinia n population
centres, ostensibly under Palestinian civil and
security control; Area B ostensibly under Palestinian
civil and joint Israeli-Palestinian security control;
and Area C, some 60 percent of the West Bank,
under total Israeli civil and military and planning

As society becomes more fragmented, the dangers
from the use of arms increases; this was brought
home by the violent split between the two major
factions, Fatah and Hamas, in 2007. This split led to
the formation of two separate governments, one in
the Gaza Strip led by Hamas and the other in the
West Bank led by Fatah, and to violence by each

Every man, woman
and child in the
Gaza Strip – some 1.7
million people – have
been directly affected
by the conflict.

Amongst the legacies of
Oslo has been the creation
of different Palestinian ‘security
areas’, which directly impact
the freedom of movement
for every Palestinian and
thereby their access to health,
education, water and other
necessities.

side against the other, whether by open use of arms
or arrests. The split considerably added to levels
c “The armed forces’ main task was not to guarantee the security of the
occupied inhabitants from external attacks or from the occupying power,
but to maintain law and order within the West Bank and the Gaza Strip
and to protect Israel’s citizens from Palestinian militants. Prime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin made this blatantly clear when he noted that PA security
personnel operated throughout the West Bank with “Israel’s knowledge and
in cooperation with Israel’s security forces to safeguard Israel’s security
interests.” Neve Gordon (2008:40), Israel's Occupation.

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