Women in Gaza denied inheritance rights....

The apartheid state in action...

The majority of women in Gaza are being denied their inheritance rights, a survey by a Gaza-based women’s rights advocacy group has found.

The Women’s Affairs Center (WAC) study, Women and Inheritance, found 88 percent of those surveyed claimed to have been denied their inheritance. Around two thirds of those interviewed said they would not request aid to restore their legal rights.

Details of the study were published last week, ahead of International Women’s Day on Monday, in an attempt to highlight one of the most complicated issues facing Palestinian women.

“You can say it’s a matter of culture more than religion,” Diab Zayed, programs officer at the Palestinian Working Woman Society for Development (PWWSD) told The Media Line, noting that the problem exists in the West Bank as well as Gaza.

He explained that the family of a widow’s late husband would prefer to see inheritance pass to the deceased’s brothers and sons rather than the widow.

“Land is very important in the Palestinian community, and they don’t want the land to go to another family if the man dies,” Zayed said. “The [widowed] women might get an amount of money and that’s it.”