On Tuesday 16 April 2019, the Jerusalem District Court upheld the work permit revocation of Human Rights Watch (HRW) Israel and Palestine Director Omar Shakir and gave him until 1 May 2019 to leave the country. This alarming decision is part of an ongoing attempt to hinder Mr. Shakir in his work as leading human rights defender as well as a flagrant violation of his basic rights to movement and freedom of expression. The case represents the first application of Amendment No. 28 of the Entry into Israel Law against a person lawfully present in Israel.

Between 11 March - 24 March 2019, Al-Haq documented five cases of killings of Palestinian civilians across the West Bank. In total, eight Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) over the past three weeks.[1] The number and the frequency of the killings reflect an Israeli policy of systematic resort to excessive, unnecessary and disproportionate use of lethal force. Cases documented in the reporting period of this weekly focus include killings as a result of excessive use of lethal force, extrajudicidial killings, torture, inhuman and degrading treatment, as well as the targeting of protected persons and civilian objects,  constituting multiple violations of Israel’s obligations as Occupying Power as set forth under international law.

On 27 March 2019, the Israeli occupying forces killed 17-year-old Palestinian citizen, Sajed Abd Al-Hakim Hilmi Mizher, a volunteer first responder with the Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS), who was fatally shot by the Israeli occupying forces while he was on duty tending to the injured during confrontations between Palestinian youth and Israeli soldiers in Dheisheh Refugee Camp, south of Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank. Since Wednesday, 27 March 2019, Al-Haq has carried out comprehensive field investigations into the killing of Sajed Mizher, having collected sworn affidavits from eyewitnesses, prepared a field report of the incident, and collected images and other relevant documents on the case. This report outlines the facts of the killing, as documented by Al-Haq, and provides contextual information collected in relation to the victim, while it further details the distortion of the truth by the Israeli occupying authorities in relation to alleged footage of the killing distributed by the Israeli army and media, and sheds light on Al-Haq’s conclusions as a result of its detailed documentation and follow-up.

During the reporting period from 4 to 17 March, Al-Haq documented escalations in clashes and killings throughout the West Bank. On 4 March 2019, following the breakdown of a military jeep, and subsequent car crash, Israeli soldiers fired gunshots at injured passengers in the car resulting in the killing of Amir Mahmoud Daraj and Yousef Raed Anqawi. As of 8 April, the bodies of the deceased have not been released by Israel to the families for burial. To date, Al-Haq has documented the withholding of 34 bodies of Palestinians by Israeli authorities, including some who were killed in 2016 . The practice of withholding bodies is a continuing unlawful practice undertaken by Israel as a measure of collective punishment, directed against the victims’ families.