Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights (LPHR) is a legal charity in the UK that works on projects focused on protecting and promoting Palestinian human rights.

On 12 July 2019, nine-year-old ‘Abd a-Rahman a-Shteiwi was shot in the forehead by an Israeli soldier in Kafr Qaddum, in the occupied West Bank, during the town’s weekly protests against settlement expansion and settler violence. At the the time he was shot, ‘Abd was playing at the entrance of his friend’s house, over 100 metres away from demonstrators. The shot to ‘Abd’s forehead resulted in a large hole, multiple skull fractures and serious brain damage; a CT scan showed around 100 fragments lodged in the boy’s brain. Over three months since this grievous wounding, we have reports from two sources that he remains in hospital in a coma. (more…)

On 2 September 2019 the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) ordered the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (the Prosecutor), Fatou Bensouda, to reconsider her decision not to open an investigation into the Gaza flotilla raid. This marks the third intervention by the ICC against the Prosecutor’s decision of November 2014 not to launch an investigation into alleged serious crimes committed by Israeli military forces against humanitarian activists on 31 May 2010. This blog provides a brief overview of the prosecutorial and judicial decisions made at the ICC in relation to this egregious incident. (more…)

In August 2019, the World Health Organisation (WHO) reported that between 30 March 2018 and 31 July 2019, 315 Palestinians (including 62 children) had been killed during the ‘Great March of Return’ civilian protests in Gaza that demand realisation of the right of return and an end to the closure imposed on Gaza. In addition, Israeli forces’ use of excessive force, including live ammunition, against civilian protesters not posing a direct and imminent threat to life or serious injury, has caused thousands of injuries, many being very serious. 7,381 Palestinians have suffered gunshot wounds, of which 6,437 (87%) presented limb wounds, according to the WHO report. (more…)

In June 2015, the UK National Contact Point for the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises published its important findings that G4S was in multiple breach of human rights responsibilities connected to its activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, following a comprehensive human rights complaint submitted by LPHR. Nine months afterwards, G4S announced that it had commenced a process to sell its subsidiary company, G4S Israel. Then, in June 2017, the UK multinational announced that it had completed the sale of G4S Israel to an Israeli private equity fund, FIMI Opportunity Funds.

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