Occupied Palestine, 31 October 2026: Twenty-six years ago, feminist movements around the world welcomed the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 as a step on the path of concrete protection for women and recognition of their role and right to participate in peacemaking. Today, its anniversary comes as so many women continue to pay the price of war and occupation, facing violations that the international community fails to stop and whose perpetrators face no accountability. The question remains: what are international commitments worth if women cannot see their impact on their lives, security, and rights?
In Palestine, this question has a painful, everyday meaning. For a Palestinian woman, security means that her home remains standing, that her children reach school and return safely, and that she can reach healing facilities, her workplace, or her land without fear or obstruction. It also means living in a free homeland and having a meaningful voice in the decisions that shape her future and the future of the nation in general. Occupation, genocidal war, settlement expansion, and forcible displacement undermine these rights, while international pledges are repeated without action commensurate with the responsibility at stake.
Palestinian women need not another statement of concern. They are demanding protection that safeguards their lives and dignity, an end to violations, accountability for those responsible, and their right to justice and reparation. They have every right to question the purpose of an agenda called Women, Peace and Security when the international community stands hands-cuffed without compelling the occupying Power to respect their rights.
The Palestinian Working Woman Society for Development (PWWSD) stresses that separating Palestinian women’s suffering from the occupation misrepresents their reality, obscures its causes, and weakens efforts to address it. The demolition of a home means the loss of safety and privacy. Restrictions on movement deny women access to medical care, education, or a livelihood. Displacement places additional burdens on women as they protect and care for their families in conditions that lack the most basic requirements for a dignified life.
PWWSD therefore rejects the use of the Women, Peace and Security Index to whitewash the occupying State’s record, or to present its higher ranking than Palestine as evidence that it respects women’s rights. The 2025/2026 Index ranked Israel 84th out of 181 countries and economies, while Palestine ranked 167th. This comparison raises a question that cannot be ignored: how can women’s situation under occupation be assessed without clearly identifying the occupying State’s responsibility for undermining their security and rights?
Documenting the deterioration in Palestinian women’s situation is essential to exposing what they face and demanding their rights. But the figures lose much of their meaning when presented without explaining their causes or identifying responsibility. Declining opportunities for education and employment, difficulty accessing services, and fear for one’s life are linked to policies and practices that must inform the interpretation of the results. It is unacceptable for indicators to record the impact of violations on Palestinian women, only for the same comparison to be used to highlight the occupying State’s better performance without holding it accountable for its role in producing those conditions.
PWWSD calls on the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security and the Peace Research Institute Oslo to review how adequately the Index’s methodology captures the impact of occupation and responsibility for it. This review should clarify which populations the data cover, how the situation of women under a State’s effective control is taken into account, and how violations against them are reflected in that State’s assessment. PWWSD calls for Palestinian feminist organizations to be involved in this review and for an explicit clarification that the Index measures aspects of women’s situation; it does not certify States’ compliance with international law or the Women, Peace and Security agenda.
PWWSD recalls that, in its advisory opinion of 19 July 2024, the International Court of Justice found Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory to be unlawful and affirmed States’ obligation not to recognize the resulting situation or render aid or assistance in maintaining it. States must therefore review their policies and practices and ensure that they do not contribute to perpetuating the occupation. A commitment to protecting Palestinian women cannot be reconciled with providing support used to violate their rights or to continue denying their people freedom.
On the anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, PWWSD calls on the United Nations and its Member States to take clear action for which they can be held accountable, including the following:
- Take effective action to end the Israeli occupation and uphold the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, enabling Palestinian women to live in freedom and safety and to help shape their own future and that of the Palestinian people as a whole.
- Ensure protection for Palestinian women and men, unhindered humanitarian access, and access to health care, including reproductive health services, as well as protection services and psychosocial support.
- Halt transfers of arms, equipment, and assistance used to commit violations, and impose targeted sanctions on those responsible, in accordance with international law.
- Support investigations and accountability through international judicial mechanisms and safeguard their independence. Ensure that women survivors and those harmed can access justice and reparation, protect them from intimidation and reprisals, and reject settlements that entrench impunity.
- Ensure the full, equal, and meaningful participation of Palestinian women and their feminist organizations in political decisions and in relief, recovery, and reconstruction efforts. Provide sustained, independent funding that enables these organizations to continue their work.
Twenty-six years after Resolution 1325 was adopted, Palestinian women have the right to demand more than recognition of their suffering. They have the right to see action that protects their lives, courts that deliver justice, and the international will to end occupation and impunity. This measures the credibility of the Women, Peace and Security agenda and the United Nations’ ability to fulfill its obligations.
Protecting Palestinian women is a non-negotiable UN responsibility. Their rights to freedom, justice, and security must no longer be held hostage to political calculations and double standards.
Palestinian Working Woman Society for Development-PWWSD
