Summary: Palestine acceded to the convention on 2 January 2015 after participating in meetings of the convention.

In November 2017, Palestine provided an initial transparency report that confirms it has never produced cluster munitions and possesses no stockpiles, including for research and training purposes. Palestine reports that cluster munitions have never been used on its territories.

Policy

The State of Palestine acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 2 January 2015 and became a State Party on 1 July 2015.

Palestine has not adopted national legislation. It has listed a 1998 law on arms and explosives under national implementation measures and reports that a consultative committee attached to the Palestinian Mine Action Center is considering if specific implementing legislation is needed for the convention.[1]

Palestine submitted its initial Article 7 report for the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 15 November 2017 and provided a third annual updated report on 29 April 2019.[2]

Palestine did not participate in any meetings of the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions. The first time it attended a meeting of the convention was in Santiago, Chile in June 2010.

Palestine has participated in most of the convention’s meetings, most recently the Eighth Meeting of States Parties in September 2018.[3] Palestine acceded after repeatedly expressing its support for the convention’s objectives during earlier meetings of the convention.

Palestine has not elaborated its views on certain important issues relating to its interpretation and implementation of the convention, such as the prohibitions on transit, assistance during joint military operations with states not party that may use cluster munitions, foreign stockpiling of cluster munitions, investment in the production of cluster munitions, and on the retention of cluster munitions for training and development purposes.

Palestine acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty on 29 December 2017. Palestine is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW).

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

In its transparency reports, Palestine declared that it has never produced cluster munitions and possesses no stockpiles, including for research and training purposes. It, however, warned that it is not in a position to verify if Palestinian territories occupied by Israel, such as Israeli military bases, hold cluster munition stocks.[4]

Previously in 2010, a Palestinian official told the Monitor that Palestine did not possess any cluster munitions and that Israeli forces have never used cluster munitions in the occupied Palestinian territories.[5]