Fayza and Imad Abu Shamsiyya’s house raided and vandalised

On 1 March 2020, at approximately 12:00 PM, Israeli military forces raided and vandalised the house of human rights defenders Fayza and Imad Abu Shamsiyya in Hebron.

Fayza Abu Shamsiyya is a woman human rights defender and a member of Human Rights Defenders Palestine with whom she documents human rights violations committed against Palestinians. She is also a volunteer with the Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counselling where she studies the environmental consequences of the Israeli occupation. Imad Abu Shamsiyya is a co-founder of the Human Rights Defenders Group, a non-partisan group that aims to document and expose violations of international law and injustice in conflict areas under Israeli occupation. The human rights defender is a long-standing activist in Palestine and former volunteer at B'Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, where he was involved in documenting the occupation of Tel Al-Ramida.

On 1 March 2020, Israeli military forces, accompanied by an armed Israeli settler, raided the human rights defenders’ house. The two human rights defenders, their child, and another volunteer of ‘Human Rights Defenders Palestine’ were forced to stay inside the housefor approximately three hours. During the raid, the Israeli forces damaged their property and used police dogs for the search. Any attempts to record and document the raid were impeded by the Israeli forces.

This is not the first time Fayza and Imad Abu Shamsiyya are being harassed by the Israeli authorities. The human rights defenders’ house was previously raided in November 2019, and Fayza Abu Shamsiyya was arrested for several hours. Imad Abu Shamsiyya has repeatedly been subjected to arrests and physical attacks. Front Line Defenders believes that the human rights defenders are being targeted solely in relation to their peaceful work documenting the human rights violations under Israeli occupation and by settlers in Hebron.