How do living conditions and rights for Palestinians differ across East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza and inside Israel itself according to UN and NGO data?
Executive summary
Palestinians face markedly different rights and living conditions depending on whether they live in Gaza, the occupied West Bank (including East Jerusalem), or inside Israel, with UN and NGO reporting emphasizing catastrophic humanitarian collapse in Gaza, systematic restrictions and dispossession in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and important gaps in the provided sources about the situation of Palestinian citizens of Israel [1] [2] [3]. UN agencies and human-rights NGOs describe a mosaic of movement controls, legal asymmetries, demolitions, settler violence, mass casualties and blocked aid that together produce distinct, overlapping forms of deprivation across these geographies [4] [5] [6].
1. Gaza: collective devastation, blockade and blocked humanitarian access
Reporting by UNRWA and OCHA portrays Gaza as experiencing large-scale destruction, a protracted humanitarian emergency with mass casualties and severe restrictions on life‑saving assistance: thousands of fatalities and injuries have been recorded since October 2023, UNRWA notes major damage to shelters and schools, and UN partners warn that nearly 92 percent of Flash Appeal funding needs are for Gaza’s humanitarian response [7] [6] [8]. Multiple UNRWA situation reports also document Israeli restrictions on UNRWA operations — including bans on international staff entry and limits on direct aid flows into Gaza — and NGO snapshots that allege tens of millions of dollars in life‑saving aid blocked from entering the Strip [1] [5] [8]. Humanitarian actors therefore describe not only destruction of infrastructure but institutional obstacles to delivering relief and restoring essential services [1] [8].
2. West Bank (including East Jerusalem): legal segregation, demolitions and displacement
UN and NGO updates describe a pattern of demolitions, forced evictions, settler violence and coercive displacement across the West Bank, with tens of thousands displaced in 2025 and repeated demolition orders targeting refugee camps and communities in Area C and East Jerusalem [2] [9] [10]. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights frames these trends as part of entrenched discriminatory laws and practices that treat settlers and Palestinians under different legal regimes, constraining movement, access to land and resources, and subjecting Palestinians to military law and administrative detention [3] [4]. OCHA and UNRWA record frequent fatalities, injuries and humanitarian needs in the West Bank, and list demolitions and settler attacks among top priorities in humanitarian appeals [2] [11].
3. East Jerusalem: municipal measures, service cuts and institutional targeting
East Jerusalem is repeatedly singled out in UNRWA and other UN reporting for targeted measures that affect services and the humanitarian footprint there, including demolition orders inside refugee camps, court decisions tied to demolitions, notices to cut electricity and water to UNRWA facilities, and legislation aimed at restricting UNRWA’s work in areas Israel considers sovereign [12] [7] [10]. These actions compound already difficult permit regimes for building and education access cited by human‑rights monitors, producing acute risks of displacement and denying many residents lawful access to housing and municipal services [4] [7].
4. Palestinians inside Israel: limited coverage in these sources and recorded legal harms
The assembled UN and NGO documents in this reporting set include data points that Palestinians who are citizens of Israel have been affected by detention and deaths in custody, but they do not provide a comprehensive picture of living conditions for Palestinian citizens inside Israel; OCHA and OHCHR data note a small number of deaths among Palestinian citizens and systemic detention figures for Palestinians overall, while HRW highlights differences in law enforcement in the West Bank rather than domestic Israeli policy toward its Arab citizens [2] [11] [4]. The reporting therefore documents some legal and security harms that cross the broader conflict spectrum but contains an explicit limitation: the provided sources do not offer detailed, systematic NGO or UN data comparing socio‑economic rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel to those in the occupied territories [2] [4].
5. Cross-cutting patterns, contested narratives and political drivers
UN agencies and human‑rights bodies converge on several cross‑cutting findings — restricted movement, unequal legal regimes, high displacement and heavy humanitarian needs — while also documenting different emphases: humanitarian actors prioritize immediate aid shortages and blocked access in Gaza and displacement in the West Bank, while OHCHR and HRW describe structural discrimination and possible violations of international law including apartheid‑related findings [8] [3] [4]. The Israeli legislative and administrative steps cited by UNRWA that constrain UN operations in East Jerusalem and the occupied territories reflect an explicit state policy aim that critics say further impedes aid and oversight, an implicit political driver of worsening conditions identified in the reports [10] [1]. Where sources are silent — notably on granular metrics for Palestinian citizens inside Israel — this analysis refrains from extrapolation and notes the reporting gap [2] [4].