Tom Hurndall Student Protection Project

Photo: Eman Mohammed — Tom Hurndall

The Tom Hurndall Student Protection Project is LPHR’s initiative to tackle the systematic targeting of Palestinian university students for military detention by Israel’s military authorities in violation of basic human rights. Cases have surged since August 2019 of students being criminalised and arbitrarily detained for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of association, assembly and expression. LPHR will submit complaints to relevant UN Working Groups and Special Rapporteurs, and engage with governments and parliamentarians.

LPHR emphasises there is a continuum in the systematic targeting of children for military detention (see our Children’s Rights Project) and the targeting of university students for military detention. This punitive practice that foreseeably and immeasurably harms young Palestinian lives needs to end immediately.

This crucial project is named in honour and memory of Tom Hurndall, a courageous, British photojournalism student passionate about truth and justice. Tom was shot in the head as he carried a Palestinian child out of the range of an Israeli army sniper in the town of Rafah in the occupied Gaza Strip. Tom died nine months later in hospital in London, on 13 January 2004, aged only 22-years-old. In his journals,‘The Only House Left Standing: The Middle East Journals of Tom Hurndall’, Tom wrote discerningly and objectively about the injustices he had witnessed in Gaza and that had a profound effect on him. This project is an extension of Tom’s profound legacy.

The Tom Hurndall Student Protection Project has the full support of Tom’s mother and LPHR Trustee, Jocelyn Hurndall.

From our blog

LPHR interview on the growing military targeting of Palestinian university students and the launch of the Tom Hurndall Student Protection Project
10th December 2020
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.
With Fobzu’s kind permission, we re-publish the interview below to mark Human Rights Day. The content of the interview underscores why LPHR has recently launched the Tom Hurndall Student Protection Project.
As of today’s date, Layan, Elyaa and Ruba remain in unlawful arbitrary military detention.
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LPHR nominates Palestinian artist and human rights defender Hafez Omar for Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards Fellowship 2021
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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Israeli Supreme Court strikes down the ‘Land Regularisation’ Law but fails to condemn illegal settlements and their expansion
9th July 2020
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…)
Abuse and violence against children in the Palestinian neighbourhood of Al-Issawiya in East Jerusalem
3rd July 2020
LPHR remain extremely concerned at the ongoing police campaign of abuse and violence against children in the Palestinian neighbourhood of Al-Issawiya in occupied East Jerusalem. Over the past year, LPHR has monitored and reported a sharp increase in the number of children injured as a result of violent police activity in the neighbourhood, with injuries sustained through the use of rubber-coated steel bullets, black sponge rounds and tear-gas. Since the Israeli police launched their operation in Al-Issawiya in April 2019, there has also been a high number of child arrests in the neighbourhood (many carried out during terrifying night-time raids of family homes) and a systemic violation of children’s legal rights during arrests and detention. B’Tselem reports that during the period of April 2019 – April 2020, more than 850 residents of Al-Issawiya have been arrested: the majority of them minors. This blog elaborates upon these serious child rights issues.
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For further background, see our most recent Demolitions and Displacement Bulletin, which notes that 2020 saw the demolition of 848 Palestinian structures displacing 996 people inc 524 children and otherwise affecting 5,390 according to UN OCHA data lphr.org.uk/latest-news/lp…

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The answers provided by the Secretary of State are identical and do not directly address the specific questions. It is nonetheless important that the UK government continues to call on the Government of Israel to end demolitions of property in the West Bank.

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The second asks the Secretary of State whether he plans to make representations to the Government of Israel on the demolition or seizure of at least 114 EU-funded structures provided as humanitarian assistance to Palestinian communities in the West Bank.

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The first question asks the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs what steps he plans to take to tackle the (a) increase in the demolition of Palestinian property and (b) subsequent displacement of 524 Palestinian children in 2020.

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