Civil Society Under Israeli Occupation : A Case Study of Palestinian NGO's in the Gaza Strip

Abstract: This study is an attempt to understand how PNGO’s are impacted as a result of the Israel- Palestine conflict today, while touching upon issues such as the Gaza blockade, relief aid, political participation, Hamas and the PA, and the occupation. I have had the opportunity of coming into contact with four different PNGO workers based in the Gaza Strip, and conducted qualitative structured interviews with each of them. They possess key insights as they exist at the center of the research problem. Through the theoretical lens of Paul Lederach (1997) and the utilization of the Directed Content Analysis (DCA) method, the structured interviews were analyzed in order to explore both the factors that Gazan PNGO workers identified as having an effect on their organization, as well as how it affects their organizational capacity and peace work.