In September 2020, Gisha convened a group of Israeli, Palestinian and international stakeholders for the Gaza Policy Forum. The purpose of the forum was to discuss the situation in the Gaza Strip and distill recommendations for actions that would advance solutions to Gaza’s urgent needs, help improve living conditions, and safeguard human rights.
The first of the forum’s two virtual sessions focused on the isolation of Gaza in the context of Israel’s annexationist vision for the West Bank, as well as the deliberate separation between Gaza and the West Bank that underpins this vision.
Gisha Director of International Relations Beth Oppenheim moderated a panel featuring Abier Al-Masri, Gaza Research Assistant at Human Rights Watch, Dr Yael Berda, Assistant Professor in Sociology & Anthropology at Hebrew University and visiting lecturer at Harvard University, and Dr Nathalie Tocci, director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali in Rome and a special advisor to EU High Representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell.
The second of the forum’s two virtual sessions focused on the economic and humanitarian situation in Palestine, particularly in the Strip. We honed in on the pandemic and on the suspension of coordination by the Palestinian Authority, as well as travel restrictions imposed by Israel at Erez Crossing since the onset of the pandemic which have had severe ramifications for the Palestinian economy, as well as for the fundamental rights of Gaza residents.
Gisha Executive Director Tania Hary moderated a panel featuring Majd Mashharawi, an entrepreneur from Gaza and the founder and CEO of SunBox, Jamie McGoldrick, UN Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and also Resident Humanitarian Coordinator, and Bader Rock, Legal and Economic Policy Advisor at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.
The analysis and recommendations made at the forum for sustainable change for the Strip are distilled in a summary report prepared by Gisha. To read the report, click here.