Al-Haq

PA decision at UN a "betrayal of Gaza victims' rights"



As members of the Palestinian Council of Human Rights Organizations, we strongly condemn the decision of the Palestinian Authority (PA) to support a UN Human Rights Council resolution that accords further time for ineffective domestic investigations, thus effectively failing to pursue accountability for crimes committed during the Israeli offensive code-named “Operation Cast Lead.” 

Israeli authorities ban Palestinian Cultural Festival



As an organization dedicated to the promotion and protection of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), Al-Haq condemns the repressive actions taken today [Saturday 21 March 2009] by the Israeli authorities in banning peaceful cultural activities organized as part of the Palestinian Cultural Festival marking the declaration of Jerusalem as the “Capital of Arab Culture 2009.” 

Israeli "investigation" whitewashes West Bank execution



On 2 February 2009, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported the findings of an “investigation” into an incident in which, that morning, “a Palestinian gunman opened fire at an [Israeli army] Patrol Force near the Community Yatir [sic], south of Hebron.” As a result of the investigation, the Israeli military Central Command “assumes” that the “terrorist,” who was shot dead by Israeli soldiers, “was intending to execute a terror attack against Israeli civilians.” 

Palestinian rights group commends international activists



As a Palestinian human rights organization, Al-Haq would like to send its warmest commendations to the human rights defenders involved in the feat of the SS Free Gaza and SS Liberty breaking the blockade of the Gaza Strip. The crews made the 370-kilometer voyage from Larnaca port, Cyprus, in a symbolic gesture to highlight the illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip. 

Rights group: Deaths of two Nilin boys "willful killing"



As a Palestinian human rights organization dedicated to the promotion and protection of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), Al-Haq is deeply disturbed by the excessive and disproportionate use of force employed by Israeli Border Police in the village of Nilin last week, resulting in the willful killing of two Palestinian children. 

Report: Torture rampant in Palestinian prisons



Al-Haq’s new report, “Torturing Each Other: The Widespread Practices of Arbitrary Detention and Torture in the Palestinian Territory,” documents and analyzes arbitrary arrests, acts of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment against individuals in the West Bank and Gaza Strip by various Palestinian security or military agencies and personnel. 

West Bank village sues corporations over settlement construction



In a continuation of their struggle for justice in the face of unlawful appropriation of their land, the people of Bil’in village yesterday commenced legal proceedings before the Superior Court of Quebec against Green Park International Inc. and Green Mount International Inc. The defendants are Canadian corporations involved in constructing, marketing and selling residential units in the illegal settlements built on the land of Bil’in. 

Rights org: "Fog of war" no cover for Gaza killings



At approximately 9:15 am on 14 May 2008, 17-year-old Hamdi Salemeh Khader was riding his bicycle on al-Karama Road near a local cement factory in the northern Gaza Strip when he was shot twice (once in the shoulder and once in the upper right quadrant of the chest) by machine gun fire emanating from the tanks, killing him instantly. Hamdi’s death is just one of many willful killings perpetrated by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip. 

Israeli settler kills Palestinian civilian near Ramallah



On the afternoon of Friday 9 May 2008, five young Palestinian men and a 13-year-old boy set out to hunt birds in the hills of Deir Dibwan village, east of Ramallah city. Upon their arrival to the hills, they noticed a group of people, including young children, on an opposite hill, approximately 150 meters away. Based on testimony Al-Haq collected from the Palestinian men, they initially thought that this group was also Palestinian, and paid little attention to them. 

After 40 years of occupation "solidarity" is not enough



Over the past 40 years Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip has aggressively targeted both the land and the people of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). Not simply haphazard structures of concrete, steel and tarmac, Israel’s settlements and their accompanying maze of bypass roads, hundreds of checkpoints, other movement restrictions and the Annexation Wall, are ever-increasing monuments to the dispossession and subjugation of the Palestinian people, at the expense of their fundamental rights guaranteed under international law.