Human Rights Watch - Press Releases

These denials to enter Gaza exacerbate a cycle of Israeli violations of Palestinians’ right to health. Israeli authorities control both entry into and exit from Gaza, including medical evacuations.

This week, Israeli tanks rolled into the occupied West Bank for the first time in two decades as Israeli forces intensify their operations there. Focused on the northern West Bank, the campaign is already the longest and most intense there since the Second Intifada in the early 2000s.

Sweeping sanctions imposed by the United States, European Union, the United Kingdom, and other countries are hindering the restoration of essential services in Syria, Human Rights Watch said today.

Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon between October 2023 and December 2024 destroyed vast swathes of critical civilian infrastructure and public services, preventing tens of thousands of Lebanese from returning to their homes, Human Rights Watch said today.

The overthrow of Bashar al-Assad’s government in December 2024 has created a historic opportunity to advance justice and the rule of law, ensuring accountability for years of atrocity crimes and implementing governance, judicial, and security sector reforms that protect and fulfil civil, political, and socio-economic rights.

Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said during a parliamentary session last week that the Japanese government was making an “earnest effort” to accept “ill or injured” people from Gaza as part of a “medical evacuation.”

Tens of thousands of people remain trapped in life-threatening conditions in al-Hol and Roj camps in northeast Syria amid renewed hostilities two months after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government, Human Rights Watch said today.

The United States will be complicit in the Israeli government’s grave violations in Gaza so long as it continues to provide arms and other military aid, Human Rights Watch said today ahead of a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

A drone strike by the Türkiye-Syrian National Army (SNA) coalition that hit a Kurdish Red Crescent ambulance on January 18, 2025, in northern Syria is an apparent war crime, Human Rights Watch said today.

Israeli authorities and Hamas agreed to a multi-phase ceasefire on January 15, 2025, that includes the entry into Gaza of humanitarian aid, the return of Israeli hostages held in Gaza, and the release of Palestinian prisoners.