Palestine COI

On this page, you will find:

To find organisations working for LGBTQI+ rights, visit our Palestine LGBTQI+ Resources page.
To find organisations providing legal or other types of assistance to refugees in Palestine, visit our Palestine Legal Assistance page

COI Experts

Development Studies Department, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London
Email: ah92@soas.ac.uk

Dr Hanieh is a Senior Lecturer in Development Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. He has spent several years living and researching in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and has worked for Palestinian NGOs focusing specifically on Israeli prisons and prison conditions, children’s rights and wider socio-economic issues. He is willing to discuss writing expert witness reports on conditions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Email: arg1@compuserve.com

Dr George is a consultant, writer and journalist, with extensive knowledge of the Middle East. Since 1984 he has worked as a freelance journalist, researcher and expert witness in political asylum cases involving the Middle East. He frequently commentates on Middle Eastern affairs for radio and television and contributes to the Observer, the Independent and the Guardian. He is a former Head of Research at the Arab-British Chamber of Commerce and a former Assistant Director of the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding (CAABU). Since 2003, Dr George has acted as an Expert Witness for UK, US and European asylum and immigration tribunals, dealing with cases involving Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Yemen, Egypt, Libya, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories and has produced some 4,000 reports.

Tel: +44 20 76 04 30 27
Skype: george.joffe
Email: email@georgejoffe.com 

Professor Joffé is prepared to provide country of origin experts witness statements for Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morroco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. He is now retired but is still affiliated to the London Middle East Institute at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Until 2017, Professor Joffé was an affiliated lecturer at the Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS) in the University of Cambridge, where he also ran the Centre for North African Studies. From 2005 to 2010, he was a research fellow at the Centre of Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford. From 1997 to 2000, Professor Joffé was the deputy director of the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London. He regularly addresses professional audiences at the NATO Defence College in Rome, the Geneva Centre for Security Policy in Geneva, the Norwegian Foreign Ministry and NOREF in Oslo and the Royal College of Defence Studies in London. He has also advised the European Commission (DG Relex), EuropeAid and the new External Action Service.

Email: K.A.Harbord@ljmu.ac.uk
Tel: +00 44 (0)1 51 23 15 178

Ms Harbord is a lecturer in Human Rights at Liverpool John Moores University.  For a number of years, she has worked pro bono for a variety of organisations and charities, conducting fieldwork and writing reports on subjects ranging from gendered education to religious identity.  Her main focus is on Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. Ms Harbord has particular expertise in the areas of ethnicity, sexuality, religious discrimination and human rights. She has also conducted research amongst the incarcerated and “collaborators” and has an in-depth knowledge of the situation on the ground in the region, both in respect of state and society.  She speaks Arabic and Hebrew, as well as English.

Email: rebwar@mideastconsultancy.com  or info@mideastconsultancy.com

Dr Rebwar Fatah is the Director of the Middle East Consultancy Services. Dr Fatah has produced thousands of COI reports since he began working as an expert witness in 2000. In the past five years alone, Dr Fatah has produced 1,341 Expert Reports on the Middle East. These include:

  • 830 Country Expert Reports
  • 416 Document Authentication Reports
  • 95 Nationality Reports

Dr Fatah’s reports have been commissioned for and cited in several immigration appeals, as well as family and criminal cases. Moreover, he has assessed many people from the Middle East whose nationality, native language, ethnicity, place of residence has been disputed, and has examined thousands of documents from the MENA region. In addition to a deep knowledge of the region’s administrative and bureaucratic cultures, Dr Fatah’s multilingual proficiencies enable him to understand, interpret and evaluate official documents in the Middle East. As a part of this work, Dr Fatah has produced his own methodology for document authentications and nationality examinations.

Dr Fatah has also provided written and oral evidence in court; among them are five Country Guidance Cases, two Turkish extradition orders and many other cases. Moreover, Dr Fatah has also reviewed and provided guidance on Home Office CPIN reports.

Dr Fatah regularly visits the Middle East, conducting fact-finding missions to ensure that his knowledge is up to date and based on reliable information. Dr Fatah speaks most of the Middle Eastern languages as well as their various dialects. Dr Fatah’s Country Expert Reports cover a wide range of issues, including the general security situation, sufficiency of protection, crimes of honour, healthcare, corruption, and at-risk groups of different sexual, religious, political and cultural profiles.

Email: ralkhouri@gmail.com
Phone: +962-779995000
Skype: riad.al.khouri

A Jordanian economist specializing in the Middle East & North Africa, Riad has for over forty years trained, lectured, advised, and researched on a wide variety of socio-economic and other topics such as good governance, migration (including refugees), foreign aid, human rights, post-crisis economies, strategic planning, cultural familiarization, conflict resolution, NGOs, and sustainable development. His mother tongue is Arabic, and he is also fluent in English, with a strong working knowledge of French. Riad lives in Jordan and is a leading expert on the country and MENA generally, working locally and around the region at all levels with numerous Jordanian and international organizations, and writing and publishing widely on the country as well as regionally.

Email: gabbay@muslimworldexpert.com

Dr Shaul Gabbay acts as a resource for immigration attorneys seeking advice, counsel and expert testimony in asylum cases. Formerly the Executive Director of the Institute for the Study of Israel in the Middle East at the University of Denver, he has published extensively on cultures and customs in all Muslim countries, persecution issues based on family dishonour, gender and homosexuality, and sociology and politics of the Muslim world. Professor Gabbay’s expertise helps immigration attorneys and judges understand key societal issues and trends in the Muslim world that have life-threatening repercussions for Muslim immigrants throughout the U.S. at risk of deportation. His oral testimony and written analysis draw on his extensive knowledge and examination of cultural practices in Muslim countries as well as his life experience growing up in the Middle East. More information is on his website  www.muslimworldexpert.com.

COI Resources

The following sections contain documents that can be consulted when looking for country of origin information.

See Report here

This Country of Origin Information (COI) Report has been produced by the COI Service, UK Border Agency (UKBA), for use by officials involved in the asylum/human rights determination process. The Report provides general background
information about the issues most commonly raised in asylum/human rights claims made in the United Kingdom. The main body of the report includes information available up to 30 April 2012. The ‗Latest News‘ section contains further brief information on
events and reports accessed from 1 to 14 May 2012. The report was issued on 15 May 2012.

This general country of origin information report was prepared on the basis of the questions and points of focus in the Terms of Reference (ToR) drawn up by the Ministry of Justice and Security on 21 July 2021. Together with the country of origin
report, the ToR is available on the website of the Dutch Government. This report describes the situation in the Palestinian Territories insofar as it is relevant for the assessment of asylum applications made by persons originating from those
territories and for decisions related to the return of rejected Palestinian asylum seekers. This country of origin information report addresses the themes and questions posed by the Ministry of Justice and Security and is a summary of the
factual information that was obtained. It is not a policy document and it does not reflect the government’s vision or policy in relation to a country or region or contain
conclusions about immigration policy

See Report here

This report combines relevant and timely publicly available material with new information generated through interviews or written correspondence with five individuals with authoritative knowledge on the topic. Together these sources paint a troubling picture of the situation for stateless and undocumented Palestinians in Lebanon. Sources highlight the various forms and layers of discrimination perpetrated by state actors as well as within communities and families. This includes their rights as stateless persons, which are set out in international agreements; notably, Lebanon is not a party to international treaties that define and require states to provide protection to refugees who are stateless or to stateless persons, in addition to lacking domestic legislation that ensures protection for those who are stateless, at risk of becoming stateless, or vulnerable to outcomes similar to those of stateless persons.

See Report here

‘Israel’s continuing oppressive and discriminatory system of governing Palestinians in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) constituted a system of apartheid, and Israeli officials committed the crime of apartheid under international law. Israeli forces launched a three-day offensive on the occupied Gaza Strip in August during which they committed apparent war crimes. This compounded the impact of a 15-year ongoing Israeli blockade that amounts to illegal collective punishment and further fragments Palestinian territory. Israel escalated its crackdown on Palestinians’ freedom of association. It also imposed arbitrary restrictions on freedom of movement and closures that amounted to collective punishment, mainly in the northern West Bank, ostensibly in response to armed attacks by Palestinians on Israeli soldiers and settlers. The year saw a rise in the number of Palestinians unlawfully killed and seriously injured by Israeli forces during raids in the West Bank. Administrative detentions of Palestinians hit a 14-year high, and torture and other ill-treatment continued. Israeli forces demolished al-Araqib village in the Negev/Naqab for the 211th time. A further 35 Palestinian-Bedouin towns in Israel were still denied formal recognition and residents faced possible forcible transfer. Authorities failed to process asylum claims for thousands of asylum seekers, and imposed restrictions on their right to work.’

 

Document link

This document sets out UNHCR’s position on the international protection needs of Palestinians fleeing from the Gaza Strip under Articles 1A(2) and 1D of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, as well as UNHCR’s position on returns to Gaza

Palestine Legal Assistance

Find organisations offering legal and other types of assistance to refugees in Palestine.

Palestine LGBTQI+ Resources

Find organisations working for refugee LGBTQI+ rights in Palestine.

We are always looking to expand the resources on our platform. If you know about relevant experts, or you are aware of organisations and/or resources to include in our directories, please get in touch.

Last updated June 2023