News

On 2 March 2010, Al-Haq participated in a panel set up by BBC Arabic television, discussing the commission of the crime torture by the Palestinian authorities in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, within the Occupied Palestinian Territory torture.

In order to see the program, please click on the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iGHV5T-f2I

EUPOL COPPS and the Palestinian Bar Association (PBA) today opened the fifth Legal Library in Hebron. Since the beginning of the year, 4 other legal libraries were opened, in Bethlehem, Tulkarem, Nablus and Jenin, within the framework of a German project.

This German contribution of $100,000 USD to the Justice Sector has been implemented by the Palestinian Bar Association with support from the Rule of Law Section of EUPOL COPPS.

The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) has increased its attacks on Palestinians near the Gaza Strip's eastern and northern borders with Israel; an area inside Gaza that the IOF has declared as a security 'buffer zone'. Al Mezan's investigations indicate that the IOF always fires at any Palestinians near the eastern and northern borders. The IOF's attacks do not follow a specific pattern. The IOF claims that its soldiers fire at Palestinians only when they are 300 meters from border fence.

UNITED NATIONS — The UN General Assembly has scheduled a meeting on Friday to decide whether to repeat its demand that Israel and the Palestinians conduct proper probes into allegations of war crimes in Gaza.

A United Nations fact-finding mission after a conflict that began in late December 2008 accused both Israel and the Islamist movement Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.

The Edward Said National Conservatory of Music launches its national music competition from Jerusalem between 8-20th of April 2010 for the third year in a row. The competition will include all Palestinian areas; West Bank, Gaza, green line areas and occupied Golan Heights. Musicians from all over Palestine will compete in all categories of music including voice. Beside a special prize Named after Marcel khaliefeh for the young composer.

Future Generation Hands Association and within a series of its events and activities for children initiated the first festival of children's ages 7-12 in its headquarters in Nablus city.
the children festival was attended by 48 children from all groups that had participated in the "Alleviating the Psychological Pressure on Children" workshops as a kind of communicating and interacting with the previous groups of Alleviating the psychological pressure program since its inception in 2007.

2010-01-15

Within the Palestinian-Palestinian Communication, Future Generation Hands Association in Nablus starts its activities for 2010 by held the Palestinian Palestinian Meeting. The meeting started with the welcome-speech of Mr. Majed Tubelieh general manager of FGHA he welcomed the guests and emphasized that the Future Generation Hands Association working hard with all the possibilities available to develop the communication between Palestinian either at home or the diaspora at the level of youth, women and children.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) is deeply concerned over continued electrical outage in wide areas across the Gaza Strip for long hours. This outage is the result of reduction in the capacity of Gaza Power Plant to less than the half and the increase in deficit of power available in the Gaza Strip to more than 40% of Gaza's real needs of power. PCHR expresses its grave concern over the catastrophic impacts that may result from the continued reduction of industrial fuel supplies delivered to Gaza Power Plant and the Plant’s total shutoff.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed a new Commissioner General for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) following the retirement of former head Karen Abu Zaid in December.

According to the UN News, Ban made the decision to appoint Italian national Filippo Grandi following consultations with UNRWA's Advisory Commission. The appointment period started on Wednesday.

For the second time in the past ten years, at approximately 6pm on Monday 18 January 2010, Israel opened the floodgates of one of the dams in the Gaza Valley, which flows into Gaza from the east. As a result, dozens of Palestinian houses and properties were damaged. Israel built this floodgate to prevent the rainwater's natural flow into Gaza, depriving the Gaza aquifer from its main natural source of underground water.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) condemns measures taken by the security services in Gaza against activists of Fatah Movement in the Gaza Strip to prevent them from commemorating the 45th anniversary of the establishment on the movement on the 1st of January. Security services in Gaza arrested dozens of activists of Fatah movement during the last week of December 2009. A number of detainees were violently beaten and were subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed today between the Palestinian Prime Minister, Dr. Salam Fayyad and Switzerland’s Representative to the Palestinian Authority, Mr. Roland Steininger. The MoU marks Swiss contribution to purchase fuel for Gaza Strip through the PEGASE mechanism.

With this payment, Switzerland is contributing to the provision of essential public services by the Palestinian Authority in favour of the population of Gaza living under very adverse conditions because of the blockade.

Al-Maqdese held an urgent press conference at its Al-Ram office, in order to disclose the serious information regarding Jerusalem Municipality plans for the future of Palestinians in East Jerusalem. MSD revealed in the conference a map issued on 28/12/2009 by the Jerusalem Municipality. By this, the Municipality plans to demolish hundreds of Palestinian residency buildings in Silwan and other neighborhoods as Al-Bustan, and Al-Thouri.

Al-Maqdese had a chance and got the map through its own resources. This map
highlighted 312 residency buildings in East Jerusalem that are threatened with

The Welfare Association signed in Beirut on 17 November 2009, a memorandum of understanding with Cayan company for Investment and Real Estate Development and UNRWA, by which Cayan company donates 1.6 million USD for the reconstruction of a school in Nahr el Bared camp. Welfare Association will be managing the funds of the project, while UNRWA will provide the land for the implementation of the project by Cayan company.

Source: Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC)

The Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) is extremely concerned about Israel's plans to extend the Jewish settlement in Gilo, East Jerusalem, by 900 apartments. It appeals to the Israeli government to end these activities immediately and to stop all settlement projects in the occupied Palestinian territory.

In November 2009, the jury of the French National Consultant Committee for Human Rights in France selected the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network (PNGO) as one of the five winners -among candidates from all over the world - for the French Republic Human Rights Award 2009.

The jury considers that PNGO network deserves this prize because of its work to defend human rights.

The World Bank extends for fifteen months the NDC PNGO III Programme. Whereby, NDC will continue directing the funding towards the NGO sector in the form of granting schemes and capacity building aimed at improving the effectiveness, self-reliance and sustainability of civil society over a period of two years (2009 – 2011).

PNGO III is sub-divided among the following components;

1. NGO Grants for Social Service Delivery
2. NGO Sector Development
3. Institutional Development of NDC

On Monday, 26 October 2009, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) received two delegations from its international partners, Oxfam International and Christian Aid. The meetings were held in PCHR’s head office in Gaza City.

Jerusalem Center for Social and Economic Rights warned of the occupation new plans to demolish some 150 Palestinian homes situating in various locations in the occupied city. Demolition orders were signed by the previous and current Israeli mayors Uri Luplianski and Nir Barkat.

The Human Rights Council today strongly condemned a host of Israeli measures in the occupied Palestinian territory and called on both sides to implement the recommendations of a United Nations commission that found evidence that Israel and the Palestinians committed serious war crimes in the three-week Gaza war nine months ago.

One hundred and twenty Palestinian security officers have graduated from a three-month human rights programme, funded by the European Union, in a training described by its organizers as “one of the most effective mechanisms to create a society free of torture and based on justice and human rights”.

As Palestinian human rights organizations, we welcome the report by the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict (the Fact Finding Mission), released on 15 September 2009 and emphasize the importance of the recommendations of the report for the restoration of justice to the victims of Israel’s offensive attack, Operation Cast Lead. The Fact Finding Mission was established by the President of the Human Rights Council, following Human Rights Council Resolution S-9/1.

PCHR Publishes ‘Targeted Civilians’ a Comprehensive Report on the Israeli Military Offensive against the Gaza Strip The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) today published ‘Targeted Civilians’ a comprehensive report on the latest Israeli military offensive against the Gaza Strip (27 December 2008 – 18 January 2009). The report is the result of extensive investigations, and documents numerous war crimes committed by Israeli occupation forces (IOF) over the course of the offensive.

The NGO Development Center , NDC, has signed in Saturday 15/8/2009 a grant agreement with the Legal Center for Arab Minority in Israel , Adala, for a total of USD 25,000.

The grant came as part of the Human Rights and Good Governance project that NDC is managing and funded by four European states, namely Switzerland, Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden .