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

Settler violence surges in the void of lack of international action against settlements
26th March 2021
On 10 March 2021, Saeed Alyan Awad, a Palestinian, was brutally attacked by Israeli settlers whilst on his way to check on his land to the south of Hebron in the Israeli occupied West Bank. Saeed, who was accompanied by his wife and children, sustained a cracked skull and broken jaw. His wife suffered severe bruises to her leg.
(more…)
Overview of Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria on the tenth anniversary of the Syrian conflict
15th March 2021
On the tenth anniversary of the Syrian conflict, LPHR remain gravely concerned about the Palestinian refugee camp, Yarmouk, in Syria. LPHR has continuously monitored the acute human rights and humanitarian concerns which are rife in Yarmouk, with the latest of two legal Q&As being published in March 2019 (it can be read here).
This blog to mark the tenth anniversary provides a summary of the situation of Yarmouk refugee camp over the last ten years. In so doing, it also emphasises the necessity for legal accountability for apparent serious violations of international law that has caused catastrophic civilian harm.
(more…)
Child fatalities arising from Gaza’s ongoing electricity crisis
5th February 2021
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…)
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.
(more…)

Twitter

RT @AlMezanCenter On #PalestinianPrisonersDay, Al Mezan calls on the international community to end torture and ill-treatment of Palestinians in Israeli prisons and detention centers and ensure respect for right to health. mezan.org/en/post/23959

About 17 minutes ago

RT @balkeesjarrah In a deeply unsettling letter made public this week, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson asserted the United Kingdom’s strong opposition to the ICC's Palestine investigation. See @hrw's reaction here: bit.ly/3agPSOx pic.twitter.com/rRYSrFHWor

About 30 minutes ago

‘The UK’s longstanding embrace of the ICC makes Johnson’s denunciation of the ICC Palestine investigation all the more jarring and suggests an about-face’ @balkeesjarrah @hrw hrw.org/news/2021/04/1…

About an hour ago

‘12 British charities including @christian_aid @LPHR_Lawyers and @MedicalAidPal slammed the statement as “political interference” - Boris Johnson under fire for condemning ICC probe into alleged war crimes in West Bank and Gaza @Beltrew independent.co.uk/news/world/…

About 15 hours ago

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