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.

Defence for Children International Palestine (DCIP) has recently reported on the fatal dangers of Gaza’s ongoing electricity crisis. DCIP reports that on 1 September 2020, three young Palestinian children from the same family died when their home caught on fire in the Gaza Strip. The three brothers from the al-Hazin family, five-year-old Yousef, four-year-old Mahmoud, and two-year-old Mohammad, lived in Nuseirat refugee camp, in the central Gaza Strip. In late summer, electricity was only available intermittently, about four hours per day. According to DCIP, the boys’ father Omar al-Hazin charges a battery each day to light their home. He was unable to charge the battery on 1 September, so he lit a candle and placed it beside a wood-framed window covered with a plastic screen. (more…)

Last month, our colleagues at the excellent UK charity, Friends of Birzeit University (Fobzu), published an interview with LPHR on the increasing Israeli military targeting of Palestinian university students. The interview was conducted soon after the submission of LPHR’s complaint to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention regarding the ongoing detention of three female Birzeit University students: Layan Kayed, Elyaa Abu Hijla and Ruba Asi. The complaint was jointly submitted with the Palestinian human rights organisation, Addameer.

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Hafez Omar is a Palestinian artist and a recognised human rights defender based in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. His work, which is powerful, visually and politically, has been utilised to educate a global audience on the human rights violations Palestinians face and experience daily under military occupation.

On Human Rights Day, Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights can announce that we have nominated Hafez Omar for the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards Fellowship 2021: “an award which honours the world’s most remarkable free expression heroes.”

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On 9 June 2020 the Israeli Supreme Court struck down a law passed in 2017 that provided for the expropriation of private Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank. The ruling, HCJ 1308/17, Silwad Municipality, et al. v. The Knesset, et. al (petition accepted 9 June 2020) (joined by the court with HCJ 2055/17, The Head of Ein Yabrud Village v. The Knesset ), held that the law disproportionately violates Palestinians’ rights to property, equality and dignity.

While a welcome relief against a particularly offensive law that would justify further expropriation of Palestinian land, the judgment is made on a narrow basis that fails to recognise either the underlying illegality of settlements or to be clear on the inappropriateness of the Israeli state passing and reviewing legislation to apply to the occupied West Bank. Before addressing the judgment and its limitations in more detail, a brief history of the Regularisation Law will be provided. (more…)