HaMoked: Center for the Defence of the Individual – Founded by Dr. Lotte Salzberger is a human rights NGO assisting Palestinians living under the Israeli occupation and the severe and ongoing violations of their rights it causes. HaMoked promotes the enforcement of the standards and values of international humanitarian and human rights law.

HaMoked was founded in 1988 following the outbreak of the first intifada. The organization, then called the “Hotline for Victims of Violence”, was focused on helping Palestinians injured as a result of the “broken-bones policy”. Increasingly, Palestinians from the occupied territories – East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip – turned to HaMoked with additional complaints, leading the organization to expand its activities to handle human rights violations in other spheres as well. These included detainee rights; residency rights in East Jerusalem and in the rest of the OPT, travel restrictions; violence by security forces and settlers; punitive home demolition and more.

HaMoked currently operates in the following main areas:

Freedom of movement – foreign travel bans; entry to Gaza of Israeli spouses of Gazans and in “humanitarian cases”; travel between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank; access to the “seam zone” in the West Bank; removal of checkpoints and roadblocks.

Residency status in East Jerusalem

Punitive demolition of homes.

Return of bodies withheld by Israel to their families.

Detainee rights – tracing the whereabouts of detainees and inmates; enabling family visits to inmates; incarceration conditions; torture and abuse during detention and interrogation.

HaMoked processes complaints by contacting the relevant authorities (the military civil administration, the military advocate general’s office, various government agencies, etc.); and filing legal claims and petitions to the courts. At the same time, HaMoked endeavors to introduce policy and statutory changes to improve the human rights situation in the OPT.

HaMoked’s team comprises 30 staff members, Jewish and Palestinian, among them complaint receivers who maintain direct contact with the complainants, client-advocacy staff responsible for communicating with the authorities and tracking the progress in handling the complaints, a legal team, as well as others doing research, record and data maintenance and more.

Since its inception, HaMoked has handled some 100,000 complaints concerning various issues.

Further information is available online in HaMoked’s activity and research reports.