As Hamas continues to restrict the rights of women in Gaza (see WVoN stories about water pipes here and banning “revealing” clothes in shopfronts here), things are improving for women in the occupied West Bank, IPS news reports.

For instance, five of the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) 24 cabinet ministers are women. Women head two West Bank municipalities. A woman has been appointed commander of one of the Palestinian police stations, and a woman also runs the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.

The Governor of Ramallah (Palestine’s de facto capital) Dr Leila Ghanem has several government bodies falling under her jurisdiction. Earlier, she had been a high-ranking official in the Palestinian Security Services.

Nissan FM Radio station has a staff of 20, most of them women, and hosts a Café au Lait programme which broadcasts six hours a day. The radio station focuses its programme content on the rights and interests of Palestinian women.

“Palestinian women constitute half our society and they are beginning to be recognised as full partners to their male counterparts,” Rabiah Diab, the PA minister of women’s affairs told IPS.

And in the most significant development in March this year, PA Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad approved new legislation, which would equate “honour killings” of Palestinian women with murder.