Measuring human rights violations from an ecological perspective with a locally generated instrument: A cross sectional study among Palestinians in the Israeli Occupied West Bank

Rita Giacaman ^1* Rula Ghandour ² Weeam Hammodueh ²

• ¹ Institute of Community and Public Health, Birzeit University, Birzeit, Palestine
• ² Institute of Community and Public Health, Birzeit University, Birzeit, Palestine, Institute of Community and Public Health, Birzeit University, Birzeit, Palestine

This paper presents the findings of a cross sectional household survey conducted among Palestinians living in the Israeli occupied West Bank to assess the reported prevalence of human rights violations committed by various potential perpetrators. We used a context specific tool developed from the ground up using qualitative methods to increase our understanding of what Palestinians consider human rights violations, compatible with our conceptualization of possible perpetrators of human rights violations including the family, the community, the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli military occupier and colonizer of Palestinian land. Overall, a high of 60% of participants reported having been exposed to one or more violations, with the right to mobility without restrictions, safety, freedom and practicing political rights on top of the reported violations. Regression analysis revealed that women were more likely to report violations by the family compared to men, while men were more likely to report violations by the Palestinian Authority, and the Israeli military occupier compared to women.Palestinians living in Area C, which is completely controlled by Israel and where illegal Israeli settlements on confiscated Palestinian land are located, had higher odds of reporting experiences of general human rights violations, as well as those committed the Israeli military occupier, the Palestinian Authority, and the family. Those who reported having lower educational levels, and who reported coming from poorer backgrounds compared to others around them had higher odds of reporting human rights violations by all offenders. The study highlights the importance of including the family and community as potential human rights perpetrators, and the significance of using mixed methods in research to bring research closer to the realities of participants. Especially during wartime and the descent of violence into the ordinary as Palestinians continue to experience daily, this combination of family, communal, governmental and military occupier violations can only be synergistic, and is bound to intensify the suffering people endure making life increasingly difficult to live, and highly likely to produce dramatic negative effects on health, whether physical or mental. As, in the end, health is a social and political construction.