in 1959, the Gaza Strip has applied Egyptian penal law Articles 290 and 291, a marry-your-rapist law that allowed an accused rapist to evade punishment by marrying his victim. These provisions were repealed in Egypt itself in 1999, but continued to apply in the Gaza Strip. After being annexed by Jordan in 1950, the 1960 Jordanian penal law Article 308, which contained a similar provision, has applied in the West Bank. It is unclear how often the law was applied in practice. Ikhlas Sufan, director of a Nablus victims of violence shelter, told Human Rights Watch that "between 2011 and 2017 prosecution for rape has been halted in 60 cases – in which the shelter was helping the women – after the alleged rapist agreed to marry the victim. In 15 of these cases the women later divorced these men." An activist campaign put pressure on the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas who eventually signed Law no. 5 of 2018 on 14 March 2018, which repealed article 308 of the 1960 Jordon Penal Code enforced in the West Bank. However, because the Gaza Strip is de facto controlled by Hamas, the Egyptian-derived marry-your-rapist law still applies there. References Palestine Palestinian law Society of the State of Palestine