Tag: Al-Mezan

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Cultural Genocide: Devastation of Cultural Heritage in Gaza by Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

This report’s findings strongly suggest that Israel has carried out its destruction of Palestinian cultural heritage sites systematically and with the intent to eradicate Palestinian heritage. This heritage takes both tangible forms – ancient buildings, cemeteries, mosaics, markets, bath houses and so on – and intangible ones, such as the sense of belonging that arises from living among the material culture of a civilization that has endured for centuries. The extensive damage to these sites is not merely collateral – the unintended result of attacks against military objectives. It is a genocidal method that contributes to the erasure of a people. The impact of such an attack on heritage is manifold and profound.

Continue reading at https://mezan.org/en/post/46891

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Catastrophic Collapse of Health Conditions in the Gaza Strip by Al Mezan Center for Human Rights

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

Al Mezan Center for Human Rights organised on Wednesday, 26 August 2026, a workshop titled “The Role of Civil Society Organisations in Providing Health Services during the Genocide and Current Challenges,” held via Zoom. The workshop focused on the catastrophic deterioration of health conditions in the Gaza Strip resulting from the widespread destruction of hospitals, health centres, and infrastructure, alongside the continued prevention and obstruction of humanitarian aid entry. These restrictions have been accompanied by severe shortages of medicines, medical supplies, and fuel, as well as restrictions on patients’ movement, depriving thousands of patients and injured persons of the care and treatment they urgently need.

Continue reading at https://mezan.org/en/post/46890

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Over 185 Organisations Warn EU Failure to Suspend EU-Israel Association Agreement Violates Fundamental Human Rights Commitments (Al-Mezan, April 2026)

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

By refusing to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement, the EU has demonstrated a clear prioritisation of economic interests through its complete abandonment of the rule of law, human rights, and fundamental legal principles.

… By June 2025, the EU had circulated a document summarising “serious allegations of grave violations of international human rights law (IHRL) and international humanitarian law (IHL)”. Despite concluding that “there are indications that Israel would be in breach of its human rights obligations”, the bloc took no decisive action to counter Israel’s live-streamed genocide of the Palestinian people.

Nearly a year later, that inaction has hardened into policy. By maintaining its existing relationship, the EU has effectively signalled its commitment to remaining complicit in Israel’s commission of mass atrocity crimes, including its ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people, by refusing to alter its relationship with the settler-colonial apartheid regime. This position has been adopted in full awareness, and total disregard, of overwhelming legal and evidentiary developments…

Continue reading at https://www.mezan.org/public/index.php/en/post/46856/Over-185-Organisations-Warn-EU-Failure-to-Suspend-EU-Israel-Association-Agreement-Violates-Fundamental-Human-Rights-Commitments

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The Death Penalty Law: A New Brutal Tool of Genocide by Al-Mezan

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

This brutal piece of legislation, providing for death by hanging, is another means by which Israel can kill Palestinians, a further weapon in Israel’s genocidal arsenal. Al Mezan considers it a brutal approach that evidence Israel’s determination to continue its genocide. The law’s adoption would further emphasize the international system’s inability to end the Israeli crimes that have killed tens of thousands of civilians protected by the virtue of international law. Further, the Center condemns the racist nature of the law, which is applicable to the Palestinian prisoners only, and not to Israelis who carried out mass killings of Palestinians.

Continue reading at https://mezan.org/en/post/46842

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Al-Haq, Al-Mezan and Addameer Support UNSR Albanese on Upcoming Thematic Report with Joint Submissions on Israel’s Widespread and Systematic Use of Torture Against Palestinians, In and Outside the Context of Detention by Al Haq

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

On 10 December 2025, Al-Haq, Al-Mezan and Addameer made two joint submissions to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese, in response to her call for input for her upcoming thematic report on torture to the Human Rights Council’s 61st Session in March 2026.

… Special Rapporteur Albanese will investigate both specific acts and specific acts and methods of torture and ill-treatment committed against Palestinians and structural or collective practices that intentionally inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering for prohibited purposes, including punishment, intimidation, coercion, and discrimination. Hence, the first submission documents Israel’s deployment of torture as a deliberate state policy against Palestinian men, women, and children held arbitrarily.

… The second report draws crucial attention to structural and collective Israeli practices outside detention contexts, including: State-sponsored settler violence to further oppress, dominate and forcibly displace the Palestinian people; the mass forcible transfer of Palestinians in Gaza; widespread and systematic home demolitions; the use of Palestinians as human shields; and the deployment of military dogs to attack and terrorise Palestinian children and adults alike. These measures, carried out with the intent to racially dominate and destroy the Palestinian people as a whole, are carried out to purposefully inflict severe mental suffering.

Submission Ⅰ can be found here. 

Submission ⅠⅠ can be found here.

Continue reading at https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/27172.html

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Gaza: South Africa must urgently return to the International Court of Justice by Raji Sourani, Issam Younis & Shawan Jabarin

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

… Palestinians in Gaza must now face the deadly consequences of the United Nations secretary general’s decision to remove all UN staff from Gaza, after Israel’s lethal attacks. Such UN moves have historically foreshadowed the completion of similar genocidal campaigns in Srebrenica and Rwanda. Gaza is now entering its darkest hour.

Continue reading at https://mg.co.za/thought-leader/2025-04-11-gaza-south-africa-must-urgently-return-to-the-international-court-of-justice/

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Al-Naqab Prison: Recent Visit Confirms Continued Israeli Abuses of Gaza Detainees Amid International Silence by Al-Mezan

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

Israeli authorities have abused Palestinians in their custody for over ten months now, amid international silence and the absence of accountability. We reaffirm that the abuses of Gaza detainees by Israeli authorities constitute part of a broader pattern of behavior that aligns with the crime of genocide. Throughout their abduction and detention, Palestinian residents of Gaza are treated as ‘human animals’, demonstrating that the dehumanizing and genocidal rhetoric employed by the highest levels of the Israeli leadership to characterize Palestinians as a group was embraced throughout all ranks within the military and the IPS. 

Continue reading at https://mezan.org/en/post/46508

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Open Letter: States Must Urgently Intervene to Stop a ‘Srebrenica’ Massacre in Rafah and Enforce a Ceasefire by Al-Haq, Al-Mezan, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

We, the General Directors of the Palestinian human rights organisations, Al-Haq, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, write to you to urge your immediate and direct intervention to stop Israel’s attack on Rafah in Gaza, amid Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, ongoing for 213 consecutive days.

… The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has twice stated the need to prevent genocide, an erga omnes obligation of all signatory States to the Genocide Convention which is persistently violated by States that continue to arm and financially support Israel’s settler-colonial, apartheid, and genocidal regime. Our organisations urgently request that States immediately halt all military support for Israel and make clear that attacks on Rafah must be met with a unified, tangible response. This should include a two-way arms embargo, economic sanctions, including freezing the assets of all Israeli government and army officials, as well as travel bans and divestment from all Israeli activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).

In order to convey to Israeli leaders that the long-standing impunity they have enjoyed has now ceased, States must publicly support South Africa’s proceedings before the ICJ. Moreover, as we continue our work to ensure the issuance of the long-awaited arrest warrants of Israeli officials and perpetrators by the International Criminal Court (ICC), we call on States Parties to the Rome Statute of the ICC to urgently refer the Situation to the Court and support the Office of the Prosecutor in its investigation. This includes the sharing of information, where relevant, cooperating on arrest warrants, and making financial contributions to the Court and the Trust Fund for Victims to ensure the viability of the Situation in Palestine.

Lastly, the international community as a whole must actively and meaningfully work towards ending Israel’s illegal occupation and dismantling the settler-colonial apartheid regime against the Palestinian people. The process of emptying Gaza and destroying Palestinian life and culture therein is a manifestation of the ongoing Nakba. Just as the international community stood by then, it stands by now. Echoes of condemnation from world leaders have the same effect as silence. What is needed is action.

The ongoing genocide in Gaza is a stark reminder to the harsh reality of unchecked impunity and the bleak world it creates.

Continue reading at https://pchrgaza.org/en/open-letter-states-must-urgently-intervene-to-stop-a-srebrenica-massacre-in-rafah-and-enforce-a-ceasefire/

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Israeli Military Escalates Bombing of Civilian Homes in Rafah Amid Threats of Ground Invasion by Al-Haq, Al-Mezan, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

[T]he Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), Al Mezan, and Al-Haq — reiterate their warning of the heightened risk of launching a large-scale military invasion on Rafah, and warn that Israeli forces may seek, through intimidation by bombing homes and killing large numbers of civilians, intensifying artillery shelling, and breaking the sound barrier, to force the population into displacement again. This pattern has been observed in recent weeks with the escalation of Israeli threats to attack Rafah.

In this regard, we highlight that the continuation of these heinous crimes is a result of Israel’s long-enjoyed impunity emboldened by the international community’s inaction and Third States’ unwavering military and political support. Therefore, we call on the international community to take serious and immediate action to compel Israel to end its ongoing genocidal military campaign, and adhere to the binding decisions of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordering the end of all genocidal acts in Gaza. 

Continue reading at https://pchrgaza.org/en/israeli-military-escalates-bombing-of-civilian-homes-in-rafah-amid-threats-of-ground-invasion/

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Immediate Action Needed to Ensure Independent International Oversight in Israeli Prisons and Detention Centers by Addameer, Al-Haq, Al-Mezan, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights

PLEASE TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW AND SEND YOUR LETTER TO THE UN OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL ADVISER ON THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT PROSECUTOR.

Israeli authorities held Palestinian residents of Gaza separately from other Palestinian prisoners and detainees. Many are being held in ad hoc, army-administered detention camps, primarily situated in the Naqab desert in southern Israel. Testimonies from released prisoners indicate that the torture inflicted on Gaza detainees has reached unprecedented levels. During their abduction and detention, Palestinian residents of Gaza are treated as ‘human animals’, demonstrating that the dehumanizing and genocidal rhetoric used by the highest levels of the Israeli leadership to characterize Palestinians was embraced throughout all ranks within the military and the IPS. 

Our organizations maintain that the actual number of Palestinians who have “died” while in Israeli custody is much higher than the documented cases suggest. This assertion is grounded in the dozens of testimonies from released prisoners collected by our organizations and other civil society organizations. These testimonies include accounts from tortured detainees who witnessed other fellow detainees being beaten to death. 

Continue reading at https://pchrgaza.org/en/immediate-action-needed-to-ensure-independent-international-oversight-in-israeli-prisons-and-detention-centers/