Palestinian
women in Jerusalem are under constant attack by both Israeli state
forces and at the hands of vigilantes, a coalition of groups stated Saturday.

Speaking as “women, mothers, sisters, daughters and youth,” the
Jerusalemite Women’s Coalition is calling “for the protection of our
bodily safety and security when in our homes, walking in our
neighborhood, reaching schools, clinics, work places and worship
venues.”

More than
60 Palestinians have been killed so far this month. While the majority
are young men, and at least 15 of those slain were under 18 years old,
women have also been targeted by Israeli occupation forces.

Killed at checkpoints

On Sunday, Dania Irsheid, 17, was shot dead
at an Israeli checkpoint in the West Bank city of Hebron, where
eyewitnesses reported that soldiers searching her schoolbag demanded to
know “where is the knife.” When she replied that there was no knife and
raised her hands, she was shot seven or eight times, witnesses said.

Bayan Ayman Abd al-Hadi al-Esseili, 16, was shot dead
by Israeli soldiers on 17 October. The soldiers claimed that she had
tried to attack them with a knife near the Kiryat Arba settlement in
Hebron.

In September, Hadil Saleh Hashlamoun,
18, was shot and left to bleed at an Israeli checkpoint in Hebron.
Israeli soldiers claimed that she had tried to stab them, but like in
the slayings of al-Esseili and Irsheid, no injuries were reported and
eyewitnesses rejected this version of events.

Photographs of Hashlamoun after she was shot were circulated and mocked by Israelis on social media. The images showed the woman, who had in life had worn very modest Islamic dress, clad only in her underwear.

In the Jerusalem village of Issawiyeh, 65-year-old Huda Darwish died
on 19 October after Israeli forces fired tear gas canisters in the
area. The driver of a car carrying Darwish was delayed while attempting
to exit the village through an Israeli checkpoint, and Darwish died
shortly after reaching hospital.

And in Gaza City, 30-year-old Nour Rasmi Hassan was killed along with her two-year-old daughter Rahaf
in an Israeli airstrike on their home. Hassan was five months pregnant
at the time; three of her other children were also injured.

In Afula, a city in northern Israel, police officers shot a Palestinian woman,
Israa Abed, multiple times while her hands were up on 9 October.
Israeli media claimed that the woman was wielding a knife and attempted
to stab a bus driver. But videos show that Abed posed no threat at the
time that she was shot and seriously injured.

“Political orphans”

The Jerusalem coalition claims that women live in a “state of fear
and horror” as Israel “regularly executes Palestinians in the streets.”

Palestinian women there are in a particularly precarious position in
Jerusalem, abused by the Israeli state which rules their immediate
environment but not falling under even the hypothetical protection of
the Palestinian Authority.

“We, the women of occupied East Jerusalem, are politically orphaned,”
the groups state. “We are victims without protection, as the
Palestinian Authority has no right to protect us in our city, and the
Israeli state treats us as terrorists that should be humiliated,
attacked, violated and controlled.”

The extent of Israeli control goes well beyond the current violence,
extending to the “water, cell phones, Internet, mobility, health [and]
economy” of Palestinian women in Jerusalem.

The groups call on the international community to pressure Israel to observe UN Security Council Resolution 1325,
which “reaffirms the important role of women in the prevention and
resolution of conflicts, peace negotiations, peace-building,
peacekeeping, humanitarian response and in post-conflict reconstruction
and stresses the importance of their equal participation and full
involvement in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace
and security.”