לעברית לחץ כאן

Dear friends,

This year, as we marked 50 years of Israeli occupation, the Israeli government promoted policies to entrench its control over the West Bank at the expense of the Palestinians. It also worked to silence and intimidate watchdogs and critics of the occupation. Amid this difficult context, HaMoked continued its work to provide individual assistance and to promote systemic change. We can look with some satisfaction at our achievements.

HaMoked provided free legal aid to over 6,000 people this year. This includes tracing Palestinians in detention and ensuring families are able to visit them; advocating for residency rights in Jerusalem; obtaining permits necessary to access farmlands beyond the Separation Barrier, travel between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, or travel abroad; and contesting punitive home demolitions. Even when a case seems hopeless, HaMoked is committed to raising a principled voice on behalf of basic rights. And in fact, through stubborn advocacy, some 80% of our cases were concluded successfully this year.

In addition to the individual assistance, we advocated for systemic change, through research and public interest litigation. Here, too, we can point to some achievements:

• In two separate rulings this year, the High Court stated that Palestinian Jerusalemites are an “indigenous population” with a “unique status” in the city. HaMoked filed an amicus brief in both cases. We are now examining how to leverage these rulings to push back against Israel’s “quiet deportation” – the revocation of residency from over 14,500 Jerusalemites.

• This year we saw the fruits of our successful public interest litigation in the High Court on the behalf of family unification. Over 1,000 Palestinian spouses were finally granted formal Jerusalem residency status after years of living in uncertainty and with very restricted social welfare rights.

• HaMoked and B'Tselem published their joint report on the abuse and denial of due process that Israel employs in arresting, interrogating and detaining Palestinian teenagers in Jerusalem.

• In November, HaMoked blocked the deportation to Gaza of a young man who moved to the West Bank as an infant. Israel refuses to register any change-of-address from Gaza to the West Bank and threatens to deport those living in the West Bank "illegally."

• And just this month, we succeeded in pushing back against a new form of collective punishment. As a result of HaMoked’s appeal, the state retracted its baseless allegations against the family members of a man who perpetrated a violent attack and the Appeals Tribunal cancelled the proceedings to terminate their family unification status.

Amid a political reality that is difficult and sometimes appears hopeless, HaMoked’s work is having a concrete impact on the ground. We need your support if we are to continue to advocate for basic rights in 2018. We thank those of you who have already made donations to HaMoked. For those of you who haven’t, now is the time: if you act before the end of the year, your donation of $180 and up will be doubled by a generous Israeli donor!

With warm wishes to you and your family for the New Year,

Jessica Montell