Dear Friends,

We are writing this end-of-year newsletter with heavy hearts, during the darkest days the Palestinian people have lived through since the 1948 Nakba. The events that we have been witnessing – and our colleagues have been subjected to – over the last two months in the ever-more tightly besieged Gaza Strip, are beyond imagination, tearing at our shared humanity, and are a genocide in the making. To date, more than 18,608 Palestinians, including around 7,729 children and 5,153 women, have been killed during the war, with extended families totally wiped out. An estimated 50,594 have been injured, and nearly 85% of the total population have been internally displaced (OCHA-OPT, 13 December 2023).

Adalah calls for an immediate ceasefire, the provision of unhindered humanitarian aid, and accountability. All states have a duty to prevent, and not to aid and abet, the crime of genocide, and we call on the international community to adhere to their legal obligations.

2023 as a whole was a catastrophic year in the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Before the outbreak of the War on 7 October, a central component of the radical new Israeli right-wing government’s platform was the overhaul of the Israeli judiciary by stripping powers from the Supreme Court. While huge numbers of Jewish-Israeli citizens protested for months over the judicial overhaul, the Knesset enacted a raft of laws that violated the basic rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel (PCI). In the OPT, the Israeli military and settlers committed some of the most extreme violence that we have witnessed in decades against Palestinians in the West Bank, particularly in the Jenin Refugee Camp and in Nablus.

Then, on 7 October, Israel launched a full-scale, ruthless retaliatory attack against the Palestinian people in Gaza, in response to an unprecedented, brutal, and illegal attack by Hamas militants that claimed the lives of 1,200 people in Israel and the taking of almost 250 Israeli hostages into Gaza. The illegal 56-year-old Israeli military occupation; the killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians; the 17-year blockade on Gaza; Israel’s settler-colonial policies in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem; the failure of the peace process; and the denial of the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, as well as the total disregard by the international community of its obligations to fulfill UN resolutions, provide context to these events.

Since 7 October, most of Adalah’s work has focused on the draconian crackdown on the freedoms of free expression and assembly of PCI who dare to express dissent against the war on Gaza. Israeli authorities have accused hundreds of individuals of “supporting terrorist organizations” or engaging in “incitement to terrorism” for social media posts or planning protests. Punitive measures include the expulsion and suspension of PCI students at Israeli universities, the firing of workers, mass detentions of PCI for social media posts, a police ban on solidarity protests with Gaza by PCI, and incitement against Palestinian political party leaders in Israel. Adalah has provided direct legal representation to dozens of PCI, legal assistance to volunteer lawyers, coordination with partner NGOs and the emergency committee of the High Follow-up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel, and data and analysis to international decision-makers and journalists worldwide to get the word out.

Despite overwhelming obstacles, Adalah’s team was able to secure some remedies and relief for Palestinians, both inside Israel and in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, during 2023. We highlight some of these achievements in the report linked below.

Please consider making a donation or a monthly recurring gift to Adalah, and joining us in the fight for the rights of Palestinians.

The Adalah Team