Women’s rights in Palestine sit on a contradiction: the Basic Law of 2003 guarantees full equality regardless of sex, yet religious courts, older criminal codes, and separate governance in the West Bank and Gaza produce daily realities that fall well short of that guarantee. Article 9 of the Palestinian Basic Law states that “Palestinians shall be equal before the law and the judiciary, without distinction based upon race, sex, color, religion, political views or disability.”1FAO. Palestine’s Constitution of 2003 with Amendments through 2005 Women can vote, run for office, own property, attend university, and work under labor protections against gender discrimination.2Security Legislation. The Amended Basic Law of 2003 Whether those rights translate into practice depends on which territory a woman lives in, which court hears her case, and whether the matter is criminal, civil, or personal status.
Why the Constitution Isn’t the Whole Story
The Basic Law sits on top of a stack of older codes that often pull the other way. West Bank courts still apply the Jordanian Penal Code of 1960 and a Jordanian-era personal status law from 1976. In Gaza, criminal cases run through Penal Code No. 74 of 1936, a British Mandate statute, while family matters fall under the Egyptian-influenced Family Rights Law of 1954. Hamas authorities in Gaza have layered their own judicial directives on top since 2007. A woman’s rights on a given question can look quite different across a checkpoint.
Marriage and Divorce
Marriage and divorce are handled by religious courts, not civil ones. Sharia courts hear cases for the Muslim majority; Christian communities have their own ecclesiastical courts. A 2019 presidential decree raised the minimum marriage age in the West Bank to 18 for both genders, but a judge can still authorize a younger marriage if he decides it serves the child’s best interest. Enforcement in Gaza is inconsistent.
Women can negotiate conditions into their marriage contracts — such as the right to continue studying or working — and those terms are enforceable if written in. Ending a marriage is where the inequality shows most clearly. A husband can end a marriage through a unilateral declaration (talaq) that he then registers with the court. A wife has to petition a judge and prove grounds such as harm, abandonment, or failure to provide financial support.
A woman can also pursue a khul divorce by offering the husband financial compensation, typically waiving some or all of the deferred portion of her dowry, in exchange for his agreement to dissolve the marriage. Her right to maintenance during the waiting period after divorce is not automatically lost unless the khul agreement specifically says so. In practice, women often report being pressured to give up custody rights as well to secure the husband’s consent. Gaza’s family law does not formally recognize khul, but courts there grant it in practice, and hundreds of women use this route each year.
Child Custody and Guardianship
Palestinian family law draws a sharp line between physical custody (hadanah) and legal guardianship (wilayah). Hadanah is the day-to-day care of a child. Wilayah is the authority to make decisions about education, finances, medical care, and travel. Fathers hold wilayah almost exclusively, both during marriage and after divorce.
Mothers get priority for physical custody, but only up to a set age, and that age differs by territory. In the West Bank, a mother keeps custody of daughters until age 11 and sons until age 9. In Gaza, the cutoffs are 9 for daughters and 7 for sons. Judges can extend those periods if they find it serves the child’s interest, but extension is discretionary. If a mother remarries someone who is not a close blood relative of the child, she loses custody in both territories.
The practical result of the split is that even a mother with physical custody often cannot enroll her child in a new school, open a bank account for the child, or take the child across a border without the father’s written permission. The father, or a paternal male relative in his absence, holds those powers.
Inheritance and Property
Palestinian law recognizes a woman’s unrestricted right to own property, register land in her name, and build housing independently.3Arab Land Initiative. Palestine Nothing legally blocks a woman from buying, selling, or holding real estate. Inheritance is a different story. Family inheritance follows Sharia principles, under which a daughter inherits half the share of a son from the same parent’s estate. That ratio is codified, but the bigger issue is enforcement: social pressure often leads women to renounce their share entirely in favor of male relatives. Research in Gaza has estimated that roughly 88 percent of women receive none of the inheritance they are legally owed.
Matrimonial property rules also do not clearly address division of assets acquired during a marriage, which can leave women with nothing after a divorce even if they contributed financially to the household. UN bodies and advocacy groups have flagged these gaps between the Basic Law and family law codes as unresolved.3Arab Land Initiative. Palestine
Protection From Violence
In 2011, Presidential Decree Law No. 7 cancelled Article 340 of the West Bank penal code, which had allowed reduced sentences when a man killed or assaulted a female relative after claiming to catch her in an act of adultery. The same decree modified Article 18 of Gaza’s 1936 Penal Code to exclude honor-based violence from pardoning excuses.4OHCHR. Murder of Women in Palestine under the Pretext of Honour
A UN study found that courts nonetheless apply other mitigating provisions to slash sentences for perpetrators who claim they acted in a “fit of rage” provoked by the victim. Honor-killing defendants often receive far lighter penalties than the headline statutory ranges suggest.4OHCHR. Murder of Women in Palestine under the Pretext of Honour
Palestine has no comprehensive domestic violence law. A proposed Family Protection Law passed its first reading at the Council of Ministers in November 2020, but public opposition from religious leaders stalled it, and it has not been enacted. Women facing domestic violence rely on general criminal provisions and the Palestinian Civil Police’s Family Protection Units, established in 2008 to receive complaints, investigate cases, and coordinate with shelters and legal aid organizations.5Palestinian Civil Police. Family Protection Unit and Juvenile Unit Without a standalone statute, enforcement depends heavily on individual officers and judges applying general assault provisions to family settings.
Voting and Political Office
Women have the legal right to vote and run for office in both local and national elections. The Elections Law No. 1 of 2007 established a candidate-list quota for the Palestinian Legislative Council, requiring at least one woman among the first three names and at least one woman in every subsequent group of four candidates.
Representation at the top is thin. Women hold 3 out of 24 ministerial-level posts in the Palestinian Authority cabinet, a drop from 21 percent in the previous government to 12.5 percent, and only one woman holds a ministerial position in Gaza.6UN Women. What We Do: Leadership and Political Participation: Facts and Figures The Legislative Council itself has been largely inactive for years, which has frozen the quota mechanism and limited chances for new female candidates to enter through elections.
Work and Maternity Leave
The Palestinian Labor Law No. 7 of 2000 prohibits gender-based discrimination in hiring, promotions, and equal pay for the same work. Article 103 grants working women ten weeks of fully paid maternity leave, with at least six weeks taken after delivery, provided they have worked for the same employer for at least 180 days beforehand. An employer cannot fire a woman for taking this leave unless the employer proves she worked elsewhere during it.7FAO. Labour Law No. 7 of 2000 The law also requires daily nursing breaks for mothers returning to work and restricts women from jobs classified as hazardous, as well as most night shifts outside sectors like healthcare.
The employment numbers move in the other direction. Female labor force participation in the West Bank and Gaza stands at just 19 percent, one of the lowest rates in the world.8World Bank. Labor Force Participation Rate, Female – West Bank and Gaza Limited private-sector job creation, social expectations around domestic roles, the economic damage of prolonged conflict, and restricted movement all contribute. A labor law that forbids discrimination matters less when most women never enter the formal workforce.
Education
Education is where formal rights and lived experience come closest to matching. Primary education is compulsory and public schooling is free. Female illiteracy stood at 3.2 percent in 2023 according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, putting the female literacy rate near 97 percent.9Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. International Literacy Day, 08/09/2024
Women have moved past parity in higher education. Female students account for roughly 61 percent of enrollment at Palestinian universities and colleges, studying across the full range of disciplines including engineering, medicine, law, and technology.10WAFA. While Female Enrollment in Education Is Higher than Males, Their Participation in Labor Market Remains Low The gap between that number and the 19 percent labor force participation rate is one of the most striking features of women’s status in Palestine.
Reproductive Healthcare
Abortion is illegal in both the West Bank and Gaza except when necessary to save the pregnant woman’s life. Under Article 8 of Public Health Law No. 20 of 2004, a legal abortion requires the testimony of two specialist physicians confirming the danger, plus written approval from both the woman and her husband or guardian, with records kept for at least ten years. There is no exception for rape, incest, fetal abnormality, or the woman’s mental health.11National Center for Biotechnology Information. The Unique Landscape of Abortion Law and Access in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
The consent requirement means that even in a medical emergency, the decision is never solely the woman’s. In Gaza, blockade conditions and conflict damage to medical infrastructure add further barriers to reproductive care.
Freedom of Movement
Movement restrictions affect all Palestinians, but women face additional gender-specific barriers layered on top of the checkpoints, permits, and closures imposed by the Israeli military occupation. In February 2021, the Hamas-run Supreme Judicial Council in Gaza issued a circular allowing male guardians to bar unmarried women of any age from traveling out of the territory. Under that directive, border officials can detain or turn back an unmarried woman who cannot produce her guardian’s written approval.
Guardianship compounds the problem for mothers. Because fathers hold wilayah over children, a divorced mother with physical custody often cannot take her children across a border without the father’s permission, even for medical treatment. In the West Bank, movement is less formally restricted by gender, but women traveling alone report additional scrutiny at Israeli-controlled checkpoints and on restricted roads.
Gaza Under Hamas
Most of the formal rights described above come from Palestinian Authority institutions based in the West Bank. Hamas has governed Gaza since 2007, and its policies have created a more restrictive environment for women in areas beyond the family law differences already covered.
From 2013, Hamas mandated gender segregation throughout the education system starting at age nine, applying the rule to UNRWA schools and private Christian schools alongside government institutions. A series of directives have required women to wear long robes and headscarves in public settings, with universities enforcing specific dress requirements. Other restrictions have included bans on women smoking water pipes in public, riding on the backs of motorcycles, and having their hair styled by male hairdressers.
Gaza’s framework also offers weaker protections against domestic violence. There is no law in the territory specifically prohibiting domestic violence, police do not publish complaint statistics, and the “fit of rage” mitigating provisions of the 1936 penal code remain available to defendants in honor-killing cases despite the 2011 decree, resulting in sentences of just a few years for what would otherwise be murder convictions.4OHCHR. Murder of Women in Palestine under the Pretext of Honour The Basic Law’s equality guarantee applies in theory across both territories, but the institutions interpreting and enforcing it operate under fundamentally different rules in the West Bank and Gaza.