Activities

• According to its website, Al Mezan “envision[s] a Palestinian free, sovereign society where all women, men and children enjoy the benefits of social justice, human rights, the merit of the rule of law and good governance fully and equally.”
• Consistently refers to the Israeli army as the Israel Occupation Forces (IOF), delegitimizing Israeli self-defense, and erases the context of Palestinian terror, Hamas’ use of human shields, and illegal rocket attacks against Israeli civilians.

Al Mezan’s Ties to Terrorism

• In October 2016, Al-Mezan CEO Issam Younis led a meeting hosted by the Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR) concerning Palestinian reconciliation. The meeting included representatives from several terror groups, such as senior Hamas official and spokesperson of the Hamas government Taher Al-Nunu and then-leader of the PFLP in Gaza Rabah Muhanna.
• On April 6, 2015, Al-Mezan organized a conference on the International Criminal Court (ICC), featuring speakers from terrorist groups including senior Hamas official Khalil Al-Hayya and Islamic Jihad political bureau member Khaled Al-Batash.
• On November 21, 2013, Al-Mezan organized the “Transitional Justice in Palestine” conference, featuring Hamas Legislative Council member Yahya Al-Abadseh, Islamic Jihad official Khaled Al-Batash, and PFLP Central Committee member Kayed Al-Ghoul.
• For more information on Al-Mezan’s PFLP ties, read NGO Monitor’s report “Al Mezan Center For Human Rights’ Ties to the PFLP Terror Group.”

Al Mezan Staff Ties to Terrorism

• A number of Al-Mezan board members, officials, and employees appear to have direct affiliations with Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist organizations.
• Nafiz Al-Madhoun, member of the Al-Mezan Board, serves as Director General of the Hamas–controlled Palestinian Legislative Council. A number of Arabic-language sources have referred to Al-Madhoun as a Hamas leader, or the head of Hamas’ parliamentary bloc in Gaza. Palestinian government sources have also noted his co-hosting of a September 2011 event for Gaza security personnel with Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri.
• In April 2019, Kamal El-Sharafi, Chairman of Al Mezan’s Board, participated in the memorial service for prominent PFLP figure Ali Darwish. The official PFLP website labels Darwish a “comrade, national leader and historical fighter,” who according to the PFLP, had been arrested by Israel and incarcerated 3 times, for a total of 20 years.
  • On February 24, 2019, El-Sharafi paid condolences upon the death of a prominent PFLP figure, Maher Al-Yamani, who helped plan the hijacking of an Israeli plane in Greece in 1968 and served as the associate secretary of PFLP founder George Habash.
  • On October 13, 2018, El- Sharafi participated in a memorial service for the PFLP’s Rafat Al-Najjar (“Abu Uthman”). The PFLP described Najjar as “one of the pioneers who took up arms through his membership in the first military apparatus of the PFLPin the Gaza Strip, and was one of the first fighters in the front and revolution who lived the experience of detention… and repeated arrests… A role model.” Sharafi also wrote a short obituary, “To you the solace and the glory… you will remain an eternal national symbol.”
• Jamil Sarhan, Al Mezan Treasurer, is part of the Democratic Union of Lawyers and Jurists, which the PFLP defines as a “PFLP union framework.”
  • An August 2009 Palestinian Information Center article refers to Sarhan as a “member of the central committee of the PFLP.”
  • Sarhan regularly shares PFLP posts and press releases on his personal Facebook page. On December 9, 2017, Sarhan shared a post concerning a PFLP rally in Gaza, which said; “first pictures of the PFLP march today, More than 100 thousand participants anger for Jerusalem. The blood is coming from Gaza.”
• In August 2016, Samir Zaqut, Director of Al Mezan’s Monitoring, Awareness and Documentation Unit, spoke at a rally in support of Bilal Kaid, a PFLP member, who was sentenced in 2002 to 14.5 years in prison by Israel for perpetrating and planning terrorist attacks.
  • In October 2014, the official PFLP website referred to Zaqut as a “comrade” and detailed his participation in a PFLP-organized event, in solidarity with PFLP secretary general Ahmad Saadat and PFLP terrorist George Abdullah, who was convicted for his role in the 1982 murders of Israeli diplomat Yaakov Barsimantov and US Military Attaché Charles R. Ray.
• In May 2017, Hussein Hammad, North Gaza District Officer and Delegate to the Mobilization and Technical Assistance Unit, received an awardfrom a PFLP branch in honor of his receiving his M.A. According to the PFLP website, Abdullah Mheisan, joined “the PFLP at the beginning of the First Intifada and played a fundamental role in the uprising by resisting the occupation in all forms, and participated in many military operations that hurt the enemy, believing that armed struggle against the Zionist enemy is the shortest way to achieve victory.”
• In December 2018, Wa’el Mohammad Ahmad, Al Mezan’s accountant, posted a picture of himself with a PFLP flag, adding: “The revolution is strong as steel… red as embers… steadfast as an oak… deep as our brutal love for the nation” – Che Guevara. Happy anniversary to my brothers and comrades, long live our resistance and we will remain in the pledge of the martyrs.”

Political Advocacy

• Regularly describes Israel’s policies as “apartheid,” accuses Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and “war crimes,” promotes the “nakba” narrative and refers to Israeli security measures as “collective punishment.”
• In December 2020, Al Mezan, alongside a number of Israeli, Palestinian, and international organizations, issued a declaration headlined “Israel must provide necessary vaccines to Palestinian health care systems.” The NGOs falsely claim that Israel has “legal obligations” to “ensure that quality vaccines be provided to Palestinians living under Israeli occupation and control,” while altogether ignoring that Palestinians residing in Jerusalem are part of the Israeli health care system; that under the Oslo Accords the PA is responsible for health care of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza; and that the PA has adopted its own vaccine policy for its population.
• In November 2020, Al-Mezan published a press release falsely claiming that the IHRA definition “seeks to suppress activism and public speech promoting Palestinian freedoms and rights as well as critical assessments of Israel’s policies.” According to the press release, “These actions constitute not only an attack on Palestinians’ rights but also the rights of people and organisations in the US and worldwide that stand in solidarity with Palestinians.”
  • The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, adopted by nearly 30 countries and counting, represents the international consensus definition of antisemitism, as well as how to distinguish between legitimate criticism of Israel and antisemitism. An example of the latter includes denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.
• In June 2020, to mark “13 years since the start of the Gaza closure,” Al-Mezan, alongside Al-Haq, Medical Aid for Palestinians, and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), launched “an online resource and campaign for the lifting of the Gaza closure” calling for a “genuine solidarity movement that will allow us to create the political will and address the root causes of Palestinians’ rights deprivations in Gaza.” The campaign omitted that the blockade was implemented in an effort to stop Palestinian terrorists from smuggling of weapons and rockets into Gaza that would later be used to target Israeli civilians.
• In March 2020, Al Mezan, Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights, and Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) published a report titled “Chronic Impunity: Gaza’s Health Sector Under Repeated Attack.” The report dealt with 2018 protests along the Israel-Gaza border, yet ignored and whitewashed the context of Hamas terrorism, repeated assaults on Israeli civilian communities, and attempts to sabotage the border fence and infiltrate into Israel to commit violence.
  • The report also refers to Sajed Mizher, a 17-year-old Palestinian killed by the Israeli security forces, as  a “first aid volunteer.” The NGOs neglect to mention that Mizher was a “comrade“ of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine(PFLP), a terrorist organization designated as such by the U.S., EU, Canada, and Israel. Mizher’s funeral procession featured many individuals wearing military gear, PFLP paraphernalia, and PFLP banners. Mizher’s body was also adorned in PFLP paraphernalia.  (For more details, see NGO Monitor’s blog “Palestinian NGO Medic Killed in Bethlehem Clashes Had Ties to PFLP Terror Group.”)
• On May 18, 2019, Al Mezan was a signatory on a statement referring to all of Jerusalem as “occupied,” and called for the UN to “take a firm stand against…unlawful unilateral measures to be taken by the U.S. in favor of an unveiled attempt at legitimizing Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise, occupation and colonization.” The statement further called to “Ban Israeli settlement products” and “Impose individual sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, on individuals that are identified as responsible for or complicit in the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
• In March 2019, Al Mezan published a statement to mark the one year anniversary of the violence on the Gaza border accusing Israel of “serious violations of international law in their response to the Palestinian protests, including by applying lethal and other excessive and unnecessary force.” Al Mezan ignored the violent nature of the protests, which have consisted of an organized armed attack on the Israeli border and IDF positions, attempts to destroy and breach the border fence, and sustained arson, rocket, and mortar attacks on Israeli civilian communities.
• In March 2017, Al Mezan and Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) held a side event at the UNHRC titled “Health Under Occupation,” placing blame on Israel for Palestinian health issues and entirely ignoring Hamas diversion of medical aid and the effects of intra-Palestinian infighting on the health sector in Gaza.
• In November 2016, Al Mezan co-authored a submission to UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights Situation in the Palestinian Territories Michael Lynk on “Human Rights Defenders in the OPT…highlight[ing] the repressive environment within which human rights defenders (HRDs) work in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” The submission referred to Manal Tamimi, a fieldworker for the Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counseling (WCLAC), as a “human rights defender.”
  • Tamimi frequently utilizes antisemitic and violent rhetoric and imagery on social media. In August 2015, Tamimi tweeted, “I do hate Israel, i (sic) wish a thrid Intefada (sic) coming soon and people rais (sic) up and kills all these zionist settlers everywhere.”
• Al Mezan’s highly unreliable statistics on civilian casualties and building demolitions were cited in the discredited Goldstone report, as well as the UNHRC Commission of Inquiry into the 2014 Gaza war. Al Mezan’s director has also “testified” before UN committees, “especially [about] the willful killing of civilians committed by the IOF [sic].” Al Mezan, together with a number of other highly biased and politicized NGOs also issued a statement repeating the Goldstone report’s highly inflammatory conclusions and called on states to “re-evaluate their relationship with Israel” because “normal relations [could] not be conducted with it.”
• During the 2014 Gaza War, Al Mezan was designated by UN-OCHA to provide casualty statistics. These statistics originated with the Hamas Ministry of Health, and many individuals identified by Al-Mezan and others as “civilians” killed during the conflict were actually found to be combatants and members of terror groups.
• As a member of the Palestinian Human Rights Organisations Council (PHROC), Al Mezan referred to the resignation of William Schabas as the head of the UN inquiry into the 2014 Gaza war as a “charade put up by Israel” and “condemn[ed] in the strongest terms Israel’s latest and unfortunately far too common attempt to obstruct the work of the international human rights and justice mechanisms in investigating Israeli violations of international law against the Palestinian population.” In fact, the resignation followed revelations that Schabas had previously done legal work for the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) – a clear conflict of interest that would have disqualified him from the beginning if it had been disclosed. Furthermore, Schabas’ record of anti-Israel biases includes repeated calls for prosecuting Israeli officials for alleged “war crimes” at the International Criminal Court.

Lawfare

• Highly active in anti-Israel lawfare campaigns, exploiting courts and international legal bodies to seek arrest warrants against Israeli government officials, file lawsuits against companies and governments doing business with Israel, and lobby for cases against Israelis at the International Criminal Court (ICC).
• In 2009, Al Mezan partnered with Al Haq in an attempt to secure an arrest warrant against Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak in the UK for “war crimes” allegedly committed during the 2009 Gaza War.
• On February 6, 2021, following the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I ruling that the Court has jurisdiction to investigate alleged war crimes in the Palestinian territories, Al-Mezan, alongside Al-Haq and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), published a press release stating, “…it is imperative that the Prosecutor include acts of apartheid in the scope of her investigation…The decision confirmed the State of Palestine… as a full and legitimate State Party to the Rome Statute, and the entirety of the oPt as within the scope of territorial jurisdiction for investigation into international crimes…” (emphasis added). The organizations stressed that they will continue their “tireless” cooperation with the ICC, having submitted “six substantial communications and thousands of eyewitness files to the Office of the Prosecutor…”
• At a June 2017 CEIRPP conference, “United Nations Forum to Mark Fifty Years of Occupation,” Al Mezan International Advocacy Coordinator Nuriya Oswald remarked, “Al Mezan cooperates with the office of the prosecutor at the international criminal court and we also coordinate and work with the UN. We have cases in third states in Europe and we do exhaust all of the legal avenues available to us to achieve accountability and justice for Palestinians.”
• Conducts “legal training” courses emphasizing “the important role of lawyers in achieving justice and the need for lawyers to be knowledgeable in international humanitarian law and human rights law in order to be able to confront the flagrant violations committed in the context of the Israeli occupation.”
• Al Mezan has submitted various documents to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
  • In March 2020, alongside Al-Haq, Al-Dameer, and Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), Al-Mezan submitted an amicus brief “welcom[ing[ and support[ing] the findings of the Prosecutorthat there is a reasonable basis to believe that international crimes have been committed in the occupied Palestinian territory, comprising the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.”
  • In December 2017, Al Mezan, Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), Al Haq, and Al-Dameer submitted a document to the Prosecutor of the ICC  examining “Israel’s inability and unwillingness to conduct effective investigations ” and called for “investigation into the serious international crimes committed during the July-August 2014 Israeli military offensive.”
  • On September 20, 2017, these NGOs submitted a “substantive communication” to the Prosecutor of the ICC alleging that “high-level Israeli civilian and military officials have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in the occupied West Bank including East Jerusalem.”
  • On November 22, 2016, the four NGOs delivered a submission to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, “Requesting Investigation and Prosecution of The Illegal Closure of the Gaza Strip.”
  • In February 2016, the NGOs claim to have “provided evidence of the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity” and concluded that “high-ranking Israeli military and civilian officials committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during Operation Protective Edge.”
  • On November 23, 2015, the four NGOs submitted a document claiming evidence and testimonies of alleged Israeli “war crimes” perpetrated during the 2014 Gaza war.

BDS Activities

• Al Mezan has lobbied intensively in support of the discriminatory UN database of businesses operating across the 1949 Armistice line, aimed at bolstering BDS campaigns against Israel. Al Mezan has published numerous statements and letters to the UN calling to “make public the database of businesses illegally operating in and profiting from Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory, including in and around occupied East Jerusalem” (emphases added).
• In July 2020, in response to the “Report of the Special Rapporteur addressing Israel’s Collective Punishment Policy,” Al-Mezan called on “Third States to adopt effective measures to put an end to Israel’s illegal and inhumane policies of collective punishment, including sanctions and countermeasures, to bring the illegal situation to an end” (emphasis added).
• In May 2020, Al-Mezan was a signatory on a statement calling for “Immediate targeted sanctions to stop Israel’s annexation and apartheid.” The statement further called for “A ban on arms trade and military-security cooperation with Israel,” “Suspension of trade and cooperation agreements with Israel,” and “Investigation and prosecution of individuals and corporate actors responsible for war crimes/crimes against humanity in the context of Israel’s regime of illegal occupation and apartheid.”
• In February 2019, Al Mezan was a signatory on a letter to the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund calling to refrain from investing money in “Israel’s unlawful settlement enterprise.” According to the letter, “corporations may be complicit in aiding and abetting the destruction of property and forcible displacement of the Palestinian population, amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
• In February 2017, as a member of the Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council (PHROC), released a statement calling upon “the international community to abide by their international obligations” and “act immediately by imposing sanctions against Israel,” as a result of the passing of the “Regularization Law,” which is “another brazen tool for Israel to confiscate privately held and registered Palestinian property for its illegal settlement enterprise.”
• In October 2016, hosted a panel at the European Parliament on “ensuring accountability for violations of international law in the occupied Palestinian Territories and on the UN database of businesses operating in Israeli settlements.” According to Al Mezan, the “panel was held in the context of nearly 50 years of Israeli occupation of Palestine, a situation of international armed conflict, where violations of the applicable international humanitarian law and international human rights law are met with impunity by Israel, the Occupying Power.”
• In August 2016, submitted a joint complaint to the UN Special Rapporteur concerning review of the residency status of Omar Barghouti, a prominent proponent of BDS. The statement falsely describes BDS as “peacefully pursu[ing] a human rights agenda based on an international law framework”; in fact, BDS are tactics of political warfare, based on the exploitation of human rights double standards, comparisons to apartheid South Africa, and false accusations of “war crimes.”
• In February 2016, issued a joint statement that “For decades, Israel has failed to uphold its duties as Occupying Power and has instead deepened its occupation and regime of colonialism and apartheid” and “affirm[ed] the right of all individuals to participate in and advocate for boycott, divestment, and sanction actions, and calls on states and businesses to uphold their related legal responsibilities” and stated that the EU November 2015 labeling move against Israeli settlement products is “insufficient,” calling for a complete ban (emphasis added).
• Signatory to the 2005 “Palestinian Civil Society Call for BDS,” which calls for an end to Israel’s “occupation and colonization of all Arab lands” and promotes the right of “Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties.” These goals undermine the fundamental right of the Jewish people to self-determination and would effectually mean the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state.