Dear friends,
The odds were against us in 2019. Israel maintained its control of the occupied territories for the 52nd year running, systematically violating the human rights of millions of Palestinians. At the same time, ultra-nationalists stepped up their efforts to discredit and deter HaMoked and the broader human rights community.
In this difficult climate, during the past year HaMoked helped over 5,000 Palestinians to realize their basic rights to family life, free movement, residency status, and more. Thanks to our generous donors, we provided free paralegal and legal assistance to thousands of individuals and families, and challenged discriminatory policies through principled litigation.
Among other things, we:
- Represented 213 farmers denied permits to access their lands behind the Separation Wall. HaMoked is the only organization providing this assistance.
- Helped 138 families separated by Israel’s discriminatory policies to reunite through family visits in Gaza.
- Traced 3,518 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, and informed their loved ones of their whereabouts.
- Helped 330 families to obtain residency rights in East Jerusalem
Among our most noteworthy achievements in 2019:
- We secured the release from prison of three young Palestinian men who were denied legal status by Israel, and then slated for deportation as illegal aliens. Thanks to our litigation, today all three are home with their families.
- We prevented the vindictive deportation of a woman from Jerusalem as punishment for acts of violence allegedly committed by her son, thus curtailing a new form of collective punishment. We continued our uncompromising fight against punitive home demolitions, challenging 8 such demolitions during the year.
- Our decades-long battle against the "quiet deportation" of Palestinians from East Jerusalem resulted in the lowest number of residency revocations in a single year since the Ministry of Interior began this policy in the 1990s. HaMoked’s litigation forced the Ministry of Interior to improve the inhuman conditions at its East Jerusalem bureau, which provides vital services to the city's entire Palestinian population.
- Our litigation compelled the Israeli authorities to grant Palestinians who live in Jerusalem pursuant to family unification processes, the same conditions of employment as Israeli residents and citizens. Additionally, Palestinians who hold temporary Israeli residency – a population of approximately 4,000 – can now fly through Israel’s airports together with their families, rather than separately via Jordan.
This is an opportunity to thank all those who supported our work this year: our partner organizations and legal colleagues, and the dozens of people who donated to HaMoked. We could not do this work without you. In 2020, we will continue providing vital assistance to thousands of individuals and challenging discriminatory policies, raising a principled voice on behalf of human rights.
Wishing us all a new year of freedom and rights,
Jessica Montell
Executive Director of HaMoked
