Human rights accusations Al-Haq's 2012 report into
Operation Pillar of Defense stated that the Gaza strip was subjected to "indiscriminate and disproportionate Israeli attacks". The report found that 173 Palestinians were killed including 113 civilians, of whom 38 were children and at least 1,221 injuries, of which 445 are to children. Al-Haq's 2009 report on its findings in relation to the 2008/09
Gaza War stated that the Israeli offensive had led to 1,409 Palestinian deaths including 1,172 civilians, of which 342 were children; and over 5,000 wounded. According to the report, "[e]xcessive civilian casualties were compounded by the unprecedented destruction of civilian infrastructure across the Gaza Strip including hospitals, schools, mosques, civilian homes, police stations and United Nations compounds. In July 2008, Al-Haq said that more than 1,000 people had been detained by
Fatah and more than 1,000 by
Hamas within the previous year and that 20%-30% had been tortured. In June 2005, Al-Haq condemned the execution of four convicts in Gaza by the PA. Al-Haq said that four were killed without notice: "[t]hree were hanged and one was shot". It mentioned that dozens of Palestinians await execution, particularly those sentenced by the State Security Court and "may not have been granted a fair trial". In 1996, Al-Haq charged Palestinian police tortured to death Mahmoud al-Jamil—a member of the
Fatah Hawks organisation who was imprisoned in Nablus jail in the West Bank. Al-Haq's position on PLO assassinations of collaborators has been the topic of discussion. Al-Haq claimed that, because the authorities were responsible for keeping order, the killings were not human rights violations and were at worst common crimes. Al-Haq said that the "network of informers" and "agents of the state" were executed by an aroused citizenry, acting spontaneously.
The Jerusalem Post, commenting on Al-Haq's position on the
PLO killings, noted that the "mutilation-murders of young boys and girls, housewives, pregnant women and old men...did not fit the pacific image the PLO was trying to project". The Post also noted that although Al-Haq did not condone the killings in its human-rights report, it did not condemn them either.
Yasser Arafat would later clarify the PLO involvement, telling an Egyptian newspaper that he dealt with each file of the executed, if not before the killing then definitely after. PLO spokesman
Bassam Abu Sharif said that the procedure is that the suspect is warned three times to change his or her ways before taken to trial and given a chance to repent. Shariff reported that only after this would the accused be executed. and of the
Geuzenpenning, a Dutch human rights award, in 2009. In the 1990s, Israel's Ambassador to the United States,
Moshe Arad, accused Al-Haq of being a front for Arafat's PLO and stated that "most of its members are supporters of Fatah and other members of the PLO terrorist organization". While conscious of internal human rights abuses within the Palestinian community, Al-Haq views Israeli presence in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as "the root of the conflict in our region." When Al-Haq accepted the 2009 Geuzen Medal, its representative said that the international community needs to increase its efforts, citing Al-Haq's case against the UK government for "failing to fulfill its obligations under international as well as domestic UK law." The representative also expressed his desire for the Netherlands to "become the site of accountability for Israeli international crimes" and said Al-Haq, in line with its conviction to protect human rights, would never shy away from internal challenges in the West Bank and Gaza. Al-Haq board members have expressed their feelings of doubt towards a two-state solution. One wrote that "If there cannot be two states, there will be one, and it will have a Palestinian majority." Another said that a two-state solution looks increasingly unlikely. He went on to say that birthrates suggest Jews will eventually be a minority once again, and "unless continued military occupation and all-out apartheid is the desired path, now may be the time for Israelis to start putting in place the kinds of legal and constitutional safeguards that will protect all minorities, now and in the future, in a single democratic state of Israel-Palestine. This is both the right thing and the smart thing to do."
World Conference against Racism Al-Haq was an active participant in the
World Conference against Racism held in
Durban in 2001. In 2002, the organization issued a substantial report based on its conference concept paper. The conference turned into an argument about whether Zionism was equivalent to racism and whether the West should apologize for the
Atlantic slave trade. Both the U.S. and Israel withdrew their delegations in reaction to what they called antisemitic language.
Al-Haq and Palestinian groups The
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) condemned an attack launched by members of the General Intelligence Service (GIS) on al-Haq staffers in Ramallah. The staffers were documenting GIS's attempts to stop an assembly organized to protest against the Palestinian National Authority's decision to participate in direct negotiations with Israel. The PCHR called upon the government to respect freedoms and encourage respect done by human rights organizations.
Al-Haq legal cases In November 2006, Al-Haq brought a case in the
UK Court of Appeal against the British government to end export licenses to Israel to "secure the implementation of the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory|July 2004 [ICJ] Advisory Opinion on Israel's Wall". The case was dismissed in November 2008. In February 2009, Al-Haq, with solicitor
Phil Shiner of Public Interest Lawyers (PIL), filed a claim for judicial review before the
High Court of England and Wales challenging the British government over its failure to fulfill its alleged "obligations under international law with respect to
Israel's activities in the
Occupied Palestinian Territory". The case was dismissed in July 2009, and the dismissal was affirmed by an appellate court in February 2010. In March 2010, Al-Haq filed a criminal complaint alleging that a Dutch company, Riwal, "was complicit in the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity through its construction of the Annexation Wall, 'the Wall,' and illegal settlements in the Occupied West Bank." The complaint was dismissed in May 2013.
Operation Cast Lead In April 2009, Al-Haq issued a position paper titled "
Operation Cast Lead and the Distortion of International Law". The paper is a legal analysis of Israel's claim to self-defence under
Article 51 of the United Nations Charter as a justification for its military operation in the
Gaza Strip. ==Travel bans on Shawan Jabarin==