The following Op-ed was published on 14 May 2012 on The National.

After 77 days on hunger strike, Thaer Halahleh is losing his hearing and he is vomiting blood. He now weighs less than 55 kilograms and the prison doctors have told him to expect death at any moment.

Bilal Diab, who began his hunger strike on the same day, is suffering from hypothermia and has lost sensation in his feet. He too is at imminent risk of death.

As a Palestinian organisation dedicated to the protection and promotion of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), Al-Haq is gravely concerned about the participation of a subsidiary of the Veolia Group in the public transport tender in the city of The Hague. In a press release issued on 27 April 2012, the Stadsgewest Haaglanden, the Dutch local authority of the city of The Hague, announced that transport companies HTMbuzz and Veolia Transport Nederland Openbaar Vervoer are taking part in the public transport tender. The tender in question is to include all public bus transportation in The Hague’s city district.

As an organisation dedicated to the promotion and protection of Palestinian human rights, Al-Haq welcomes the adoption of resolution A/HRC/19/L.35 by the United Nations’ (UN) Human Rights Council (the Council). During its nineteenth session, held between 27 February and 23 March in Geneva, the Council has decided that it will dispatch an independent international fact-finding mission to investigate the implications of the Israeli settlements on the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), including East Jerusalem.