Health Work Committees
Health Work Committees (HWC) is a Palestinian non-governmental health and development organization. HWC applies a human rights based approach in building development models and providing health services to all segments of the Palestinian society, especially the poor and the marginalized. It advocates for their rights in support of policies and legislation that serves in the realization of free democratic society with its citizens enjoying their social rights regardless of gender, race or income.
Human rights defenders in the OPT are subjected to acts of harassment, restrictions on freedom of movement, stigmatisation, abductions, long periods of arbitrary detention usually under administrative detention orders, illegal searches of their homes and offices and killings. Many of the violations are state-sanctioned, or if not sanctioned at the highest levels of the Israeli political and military establishment, then condoned by the ongoing policy of impunity which permeates the military and judicial system in relation to the OPT. In some instances Israeli settlers have also been the perpetrators of violence against human rights defenders.
