Authored By : Habiba Khalil
Royal Holloway, University of London
Introduction
‘One in three women worldwide will experience physical or sexual abuse in her lifetime’.
The concept of gender-based violence is recognised globally as one of the most prevalent human rights issues, particularly in regions where a strong conflict presence exists. In Palestine, international and domestic legal frameworks exist to protect women, yet lack of enforcement of said frameworks and present conflicts raise urgent questions about their effectiveness. This article will draw on reports from the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), etc, alongside domestic frameworks such as the Palestinian Basic Law and draft Family Protection legislation. Using these sources, the article will examine the depth of how the law operates in practice, and whether current mechanisms are able to deliver meaningful protection.
International Legal Frameworks
International law provides different foundations for protecting women against gender-based violence within a number of frameworks, enforcing a global reach of human rights. However, their effectiveness in conflict-affected regions, depends on how certain obligations are implemented and monitored.
The definition of gender-based violence under the UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women (1993) can be found as, ‘any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women’.
It was ratified by Palestine in 2014 by the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) which is key in providing the relevant information regarding gender-based violence. General Recommendation No.19 obliges state parties to ‘eliminate’ gender-based violence and to ‘act with due diligence to prevent such violence, investigate, prosecute and punish perpetrators, and provide reparations to victims’. The significance on gender-based violence as a form of discrimination is clear, yet the impact of CEDAW, within regions such as Palestine, are constrained by the true extent to which rightful duties and obligations can realistically be enforced.
General Recommendation No.35 reinforces these standards by broadening the definition of gender-based violence to focus on ‘state responsibility’. It emphasises they must address it ‘with the required seriousness, expeditiousness and impartiality’. Even where non-state actors or armed groups are responsible for the violence, states must take ‘all appropriate measures to prevent, investigate, prosecute and punish’.
In states where the issue of conflict is not present, these demands can be maintained. The due diligence standard presupposes that a state has the effective control and ability to enforce criminal sanctions to ‘punish perpetrators’. However, for the state of Palestine, it is clear that these requirements cannot be fulfilled due to the ongoing hostilities. Although CEDAW can demand state action, the structural realities of a state during a time of conflict can limit their ability to fulfil even basic obligations.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights’ (ICCPR) acceded to by Palestine in 2014, Article 2 obliges states to ‘respect and ensure’ the rights recognised in the Covenant to all individuals within their territory and subject to their jurisdiction, without distinction of any kind, including sex. The Human Rights Committee has consistently interpreted Article 2 as requiring states to adopt measures consisting of ‘legislative, judicial and administrative means’. Essentially, this means that having acceded to the ICCPR, Palestine is under a form of binding duty, focusing on the crucial reform required within its domestic legal framework to ensure women are protected from things like gender-based violence and discrimination.
The Human Rights Committee have clarified that Article 2 must be read alongside Article 3, which guarantees equal enjoyment of rights by men and women. In General Comment No. 28, practices such as ‘domestic violence, sexual violence and harmful cultural practices’ (such as honour killings) are stressed as violations of the Covenant and states are obliged to ‘ensure that traditional, historical, religious or cultural attitudes are not used to justify violations of women’s rights’.
In essence, frameworks like the ICCPR or CEDAW provide foundations for equality, protection and non-discrimination, but their potential and use are diminished by structural, cultural and political barriers. The promises of such frameworks are undermined when women are excluded from protection and put in life-threatening situations. It highlights the limitations in contexts of conflict-affected regions, such as Palestine, emphasising how international law may not always be applied as hoped.
International Criminal Law
International criminal law is crucial in helping internationally to recognise gender-based violence as a serious violation of human rights and placing emphasis upon it as a crime of concern. This is shown through ad hoc tribunals, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which present gender-based violence as crimes against humanity, war crimes and in certain contexts, an act of genocide.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was the first to recognise sexual violence as a crime against humanity. Precedents such as Prosecutor v Kunarac (2002) and Prosecutor v Furundžija (1998) confirm that ‘rape and enslavement’ of women during conflict could constitute ‘torture and war crime if part of a widespread systematic attack or during armed conflict’. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) recognised rape as ‘an act of genocide’ in Prosecutor v Akayesu (1998). As a result, sexual violence is not a side-effect to conflict but can also be wielded as a weapon of war and domination.
The Rome Statute of the ICC codified this in Article 7(1)(g) which defines ‘rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy’ and other forms of sexual violence as crimes against humanity when committed as a ‘wide-spread or systematic attack’. In 2015, Palestine acceded to the Rome Statute, essentially welcoming the ICC’s jurisdiction over crimes like gender-based violence. This is reinforced through the ICC’s emphasis on the fact that ‘gender-based crimes are among the most serious crimes under international law’.
The UN Commission of Inquiry (2025) reported that Israel has systematically used sexual and reproductive violence against Palestinian women, describing the abuses as ‘more than a human can bear’. Thus, under international criminal law, gender-based violence can be recognised as a true crime. Many often mistake sexual violence as a form of collateral harm within war, dismissing its deliberate and torturous nature of war and persecution.
Domestic Legal Frameworks
Under Palestinian Basic Law, Article 9 affirms that ‘Palestinians shall be equal before the law and the judiciary without distinction based upon race, sex, colour, religion, political views or disability’. Equality is established, yet there is a failure in upholding it. Article 10 develops this further and states the Palestinian Authority must ‘respect human rights and…work towards the implementation of international treaties’. There is a clear alignment with obligations under the ICCPR and CEDAW.
However, this promise of equality is broken time and time again due to certain discriminatory penal codes that are extremely outdated. These include the Jordanian Penal Code 1960 in the West Bank and Egyptian Penal Code in 1936 in Gaza, which continue to provide leniency for perpetrators of honour crimes and fail to criminalise marital rape. Penal codes such as these, challenge obligations under ICCPR and CEDAW directly.
In practice, Palestine’s legal system and the political constraints of occupation undermine their compliance in upholding protection and safety for their women. The femicide of Sabreen Yasser Khweira in Ramallah (2012) is a key example of the distance between ICCPR obligations and enforcement. Sabreen was stabbed to death by her husband in her home and also attacked his own mother, aged 75, who was hospitalised. Sabreen was the 26th Palestinian woman killed due to femicide in 2021 (West Bank and Gaza) according to the Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling (WCLAC). Her killing was initially treated with leniency under domestic law, despite present frameworks demanding equal protection of the right to life. CEDAW demands states ‘prevent, investigate, prosecute and punish’, yet there is a gap in action within cases like Sabreen’s, showing where the system may be failing on these fronts. Moreover, occupation-related restrictions including checkpoints and denial of access to shelters and resources, further prevent women from enjoying ICCPR rights.
In 2020, the Palestinian Authority introduced a Draft Family Protection Law, intended to modernise previous domestic frameworks on gender-based violence. It proposed actions such as, ‘establishing specialised family courts to hear cases of domestic violence, criminalising physical, psychological and economic violence within the family, setting minimum marriage at 18, providing shelters and protection orders for survivors and introducing obligations on police and prosecutors to investigate gender-based violence cases’. Despite showing keen progression, the draft law has not yet been ratified. Many religious authorities and conservative groups strongly opposed the law, arguing it ‘undermines traditional family structures and contradicts Islamic Law’.
Failed actions such as these, call one to question how gender-based violence may be prevented in regions under conflict where there is no room at present for legal change. Culture and the broader context of Israeli occupation does not allow time for any progressive laws to be implemented for the sake of the women of Palestine.
Comparative Analysis
In order to understand the International law’s treatment of gender-based violence in Palestine further, it is imperative to look upon other examples from conflict zones elsewhere. Countries such as Jordan and Egypt, as previously mentioned, have been crucial in historically shaping Palestinian laws regarding gender-based violence. In 2017, Jordan amended its Penal Code, which included abolishing Article 308 (it essentially allowed rapists to escape punishment by marrying their victims). Palestine has not yet been able to act on these changes by bringing them to its own structural framework.
Afghanistan is another example where criminalised gender-based violence (through the 2009 Elimination of Violence Against Women) is consistently affected by the crucial issues of corruption and culture. Following the Taliban’s return in 2021, protection for women as a concept has arguably collapsed entirely. Women are excluded from public life and do not have the same rights they once did. The same can be said for Mexico where laws were created in the hopes of criminalising femicide and domestic violence, yet enforcement continues to remain weak due to corruption and cultural barriers. A lack of substantial action within these regions ‘deprives women of life…[an] issue with which the Mexican public, policymakers and legal actors have struggled’.
In contrast, Tunisia’s 2017 Law of Eliminating Violence Against Women represents one of the most progressive domestic frameworks within the region. It criminalises ‘physical, psychological, sexual, and economic violence’ and recognises marital rape. There is also emphasis on police investigating gender-based violence cases. Tunisia’s reform shows that change is possible within a Muslim-majority context, showing that cultural resistance is not unconquerable, but requires a strong political will to bring forward these changes.
Such will is arguably not present within Palestine, further supporting the argument that any occupation of territory and genocide cannot, in the slightest way possible, allow for change. There is often hope for these changes, but never any room for them.
The Possibility of Change
As long as women are subjected to systematic violence, displacement and denial of basic rights, legal reform will remain as a hope as opposed to a reality. International law recognises that acts such as genocide and war crimes against humanity are capable of violating humans. Until these issues are halted, the conditions for meaningful reform cannot truly exist.
In the absence of such practices, states like Palestine are truly able to ratify laws such as the Draft Family Protection Law and build institutions capable of enforcing protections for women. International and domestic frameworks can only deliver protection once this has been achieved.
Conclusion
Palestine’s approach towards gender-based violence and the legal limits of protection towards women illustrates how far enforcement can truly reach within conflict-affected regions. International frameworks are present in order to place foundations and guide states but being able to truly implement these laws and remain diligent with them proves to be extremely tough for states such as Palestine. Domestic reform is definitely possible and crucially needed, yet occupational struggles and cultural elements often obstruct processes. Unless international and domestic law commit to bridging the gap between obligation and enforcement, Palestinian women will continue to face violence without remedy.
The cessation of genocidal violence would truly mark a turning point in the case of Palestine’s people, especially for their women. When implementing human rights law, one must question all elements which prevent a state from acting on doing its best for its people. Perhaps if there was no element of occupational struggle, one may be inclined to be more critical of Palestine’s approach towards gender-based violence. But, as this is not the case, we must also look to those laws internationally which attempt to implement protection but fail to account for the states which truly require them yet cannot access them.
The struggle against gender-based violence in Palestine is therefore not only a legal challenge but rather an issue regarding the credibility of international human rights law itself. If law cannot protect the most vulnerable of people in contexts of conflict, then its use and importance must be questioned.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (adopted 16 December 1966, entered into force 23 March 1976) 999 UNTS 171
Palestinian Basic Law (2002, amended 2003)
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (adopted 17 July 1998, entered into force 1 July 2002) 2187 UNTS 90
UN Documents
UN General Assembly, Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, UN Doc A/RES/48/104 (1993)
CEDAW Committee, General Recommendation No 35 on gender-based violence against women, updating General Recommendation No 19, UN Doc CEDAW/C/GC/35 (14 July 2017)
UN Human Rights Committee, General Comment No 31: The Nature of the General Legal Obligation Imposed on States Parties to the Covenant, UN Doc CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.13 (26 May 2004)
UN Human Rights Committee, General Comment No 28: Equality of rights between men and women, UN Doc CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.10 (29 March 2000)
International Case Law
Prosecutor v Furundžija (ICTY Trial Chamber, Case No IT-95-17/1, 10 December 1998)
Prosecutor v Kunarac, Kovač and Vuković (ICTY Appeals Chamber, Case Nos IT-96-23 & IT-96-23/1, 12 June 2002)
Prosecutor v Akayesu (ICTR Trial Chamber, Case No ICTR-96-4-T, 2 September 1998)
Secondary Sources
UNFPA, ‘Gender-based violence’ UNFPA Palestine <https://palestine.unfpa.org/en/gender-based-violence> accessed 22 November 2025
ICC, Policy on Gender-Based Crimes (2023)
OHCHR, ‘More than a human can bear’: Israel’s systematic use of sexual and reproductive violence (Press Release, 7 March 2025)
Al Jazeera, ‘Femicide highlights need for domestic violence law’ (29 November 2021)
Human Rights Watch, Palestine: End Leniency for Honor Killings (2018)
Fayez Mahamid, Muayad Hattab and Denise Berte, ‘Palestinian law to protect family and prevent violence: challenges with public opinion’ (2023) 23 BMC Public Health 412
Human Rights Watch, World Report 2025: Afghanistan (HRW, January 2025) <https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2025/country-chapters/afghanistan> accessed 22 November 2025
Justice in Mexico, ‘Exploring the Legal Context of Femicide in Mexico’ (12 June 2020) <https://justiceinmexico.org/legal-context-femicide-mexico/> accessed 22 November 2025
Human Rights Watch, Tunisia: Landmark Step to Shield Women from Violence (2017)
