The Gaza Strip, or simply Gaza, is a polity and the smaller of the two Palestinian territories. On the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, Gaza is bordered by Egypt on the southwest and Israel on the east and north.
The state of human rights in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is determined by Palestinian as well as Israeli policies, which affect Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories both directly and indirectly, through their influence over the Palestinian Authority (PA). Based on The Economist Democracy Index this state is classified as an authoritarian regime.
The Erez Crossing, also known as the Beit Hanoun Crossing, is a border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel. It is located at the northern end of the Gaza Strip, between the Israeli kibbutz of Erez and the Palestinian town of Beit Hanoun.
Censorship in Israel is officially carried out by the Israeli Military Censor, a unit in the Israeli government officially tasked with carrying out preventive censorship regarding the publication of information that might affect the security of Israel. The body is headed by the Israeli Chief Censor, a military official appointed by Israel's Minister of Defense, who bestows upon the Chief Censor the authority to suppress information he deems compromising from being made public in the media, such as Israel's nuclear weapons program and Israel's military operations outside its borders. On average, 2240 press articles in Israel are censored by the Israeli Military Censor each year, approximately 240 of which in full, and around 2000 partially.
The Rory Peck Award is an award given to freelance camera operators who have risked their lives to report on newsworthy events. It was set up in 1995 and is named after the Northern Irish freelance cameraman Rory Peck, who was killed while reporting on the siege of the Moscow White House in 1993. The award is organised by The Rory Peck Trust. Both were set up in 1995 by Peck's widow Juliet Peck and his friend John Gunston, in order to provide support and help to freelancers. The Rory Peck Trust is now an internationally recognized organization that supports freelancers' rights and enables them to work safely.
The Rory Peck Trust is an international NGO that supports freelance journalists and their families in crisis. Based in London, UK, it provides practical assistance and support to freelance journalists worldwide, to raise their profile, promote their welfare and safety, and to support their right to report freely and without fear. It also runs the annual Rory Peck Awards.
The governance of the Gaza Strip since the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip in June 2007 has been carried out by Hamas. The Hamas government in Gaza was led by Ismail Haniyeh from 2007 until February 2017, when Haniyeh was replaced as leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip by Yahya Sinwar. As of November 2023, Yahya Sinwar continues to be the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Due to the ongoing Israel–Hamas war, Hamas lost control of most of the northern part of the Gaza Strip.
The 2014 Gaza War, also known as Operation Protective Edge, and Battle of the Withered Grain, was a military operation launched by Israel on 8 July 2014 in the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian territory that has been governed by Hamas since 2007. Following the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank by Hamas-affiliated Palestinian militants, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) initiated Operation Brother's Keeper, in which some 350 Palestinians, including nearly all of the active Hamas militants in the West Bank, were arrested. Hamas subsequently fired a greater number of rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip, triggering a seven-week-long conflict between the two sides. It was one of the deadliest outbreaks of open conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in decades. The combination of Palestinian rocket attacks and Israeli airstrikes resulted in over two thousand deaths, the vast majority of which were Gazan Palestinians. This includes a total of six Israeli civilians who were killed as a result of the conflict.
Palestinians in Syria are people of Palestinian origin, most of whom have been residing in Syria after they were displaced from their homeland during the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight. Palestinians hold most of the same rights as the Syrian population, but cannot become Syrian nationals except in rare cases. In 2011, there were 526,744 registered Palestinian refugees in Syria. Due to the Syrian Civil War, the number of registered refugees has since dropped to about 450,000 due to many Palestinians fleeing to Lebanon, Jordan or elsewhere in the region to escaping to Europe as refugees, especially to Germany and Sweden.
We Are Not Numbers (WANN) is a project established in 2015 by Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor to provide English-language writing workshops for young Palestinians in Gaza. It provides each participant with six months of training and mentoring with experienced English writers, professional authors, reporters and communicators. The features, stories, news reports and social media content produced as part of the program have been featured by various media outlet, among them Huffington Post, Mondoweiss, the New Arab, the Palestine Chronicle and +972 Magazine.
Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor is an independent, nonprofit organization for the protection of human rights.
Ramy Abdu is a Palestinian financial expert, assistant professor of Law and Finance, and human rights advocate who was born in the Gaza Strip. He is the founder and chairman of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, established in 2011. As the chairman of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, Abdu delivered several oral statements and took part in different events at the United Nations Human Rights Council, addressing human rights violations in the Middle East and North Africa Region.
Reem Omar Frainah, most commonly known as Reem Frainah, is a Palestinian human rights activist. She is also the executive director of Aisha Association for Woman and Child Protection.
Events in 2023 in the Palestinian territories.
The Al Qarara Cultural Museum was a museum in al-Qarara, near Khan Yunis, in the Gaza Strip. Founded in 2016, the museum featured the archaeology and history of the area, collected by its founders and by local community members. It was destroyed by Israeli forces in October 2023.
Yahya Rusydi Al-Sarraj is a university professor and local government administrator in Gaza, Palestine. He was appointed Mayor of Gaza City by Hamas in 2019, a move that sparked controversy due to its antidemocratic nature. Fatah, the political party that dominates the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, denounced the selection process.
During the 2023-24 Israel-Hamas war, some Palestinian women and girls have reportedly been raped and sexually assaulted by Israeli Defense Forces soldiers. The IDF has been accused of committing acts of gender-based violence, war crimes and crimes against humanity in keeping with the recognition of the International Criminal Court (ICC) that sexual violence is a war crime and a crime against humanity.
In March 2024, during the Israel–Hamas war, civilians seeking humanitarian aid were attacked at the Kuwaiti roundabout near Gaza City. According to the Gaza’s health ministry, 20 Gazans were killed and 155 were wounded. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) responded to the accusations saying they did not open in fire at the convoy, claiming that armed palastinians fired against the Gazan civilians while waiting for the aid convoy to arrive.
