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← Camden Abu Dis Friendship Association

2025-03-31-accounts

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CADFA Trustees’ Annual Report 2024-25 1
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CADFA Trustees’ annual report 2024-25

Contents

Campaigning

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Intro -Context

This was one of the worst years, full of the worst news we could imagine. The Israeli onslaught on Gaza went on and on and there was a continual flow of appalling news, horror after horror. At each stage we thought we had heard the worst there is, only to be shown more - bombardments, displacement, imprisonment, torture, and destruction of hospitals, schools and universities. Tens of thousands of people killed and counted (so official numbers), hundreds of thousands dead (Lancet report July 2024), wounded, homeless, hungry and subjected to purposeful famine with food convoys blocked. People herded from their homes – new Nakba pictures of roads full of people walking miles carrying their belongings- and usually southwards in the Gaza Strip, with worries that what Israel (and America) want to do is to push the Palestinians from Gaza. Safe zones bombed, aid workers targeted, paramedics murdered. Slaughter of journalists. After a huge effort to get a ceasefire was achieved for just over a month, Israel didn’t want this, and returned both to bombing and to blocking food, water and aid in January.

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Although a huge movement against the genocide spread across the world and other governments tried to stop it via the international courts (ignored by Israel), in the UK our local and national politicians were largely silent, some presumably watching their jobs as the party bosses and establishment lined up clearly with Israel. The UK as well as the US continued to supply arms and spare parts for the Israeli military and actively help, sending spy planes over Gaza from Cyprus. All the

good words we had heard about human rights, the rule of law, free speech were increasingly hollow. With exceptions, the media were quiet about what was going on. Speaking about Palestine though widespread was framed as extreme - it was frowned on in schools, the

Palestinian flag was taken as a challenge, protests were met with increasingly harsh policing.

Extremist politicians focused on ethnic cleansing and ‘settlement’ building were in charge in Israel and heartened by the immunity the world’s powerful were giving them, they pushed forwards in the West Bank too. Hundreds of Palestinians were killed[1] ,

refugee camps attacked with fighter planes and huge bulldozers, pulling up the infrastructure, knocking down homes and displacing tens of thousands. New settlement projects were put in place as the rate of destruction of Palestinian homes in the West Bank and Jerusalem increased. Military gates were put in at the entrances to Palestinian villages, the number of checkpoints increased and the Palestinian roads across the West Bank became slower and more dangerous, as not only the Israeli army but emboldened Israeli settlers became a threat to travellers.

See Appendix F for a human rights report from Abu Dis, and Appendix G for information on what was happening to the towns, villages and refugee camps of our friends from the Beyond the Checkpoints project.

1 In this year around 500 people were killed by Israel (492) just in the West Bank and Jerusalem. 3,342 people were recorded as wounded, In this one year in the West Bank and Jerusalem, there were 14,137 night raids by the Israeli army into civilian areas (this is counting areas invaded, not individual homes) and 9318 people arrested.

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CADFA’s work

CADFA continued to be very active on all the areas we had set ourselves while constantly asking ourselves if we were doing the best we could in the horrible context. We made good progress against the objectives that we had set ourselves (appendix C) with the exception only of the following:

Visits to Palestine

We said that if we could, we would run visits to Palestine this year and we didn’t do that. The situation was not secure for our visitors and importantly we were concerned not to put any pressure on our friends whose lives were being made more difficult by the Israeli occupation by the week.

We also felt that the changed context made it more important to be running visits of Palestinians to the UK. Our motivation is to promote human rights (not just to help people to go because they like to go). For most of twenty years we had run visits to

Palestine (taking hundreds of visitors) in order to raise awareness about what was happening in Palestine and a large number of the visitors then became activists for Palestinian human rights – the visits then were actively helpful in pushing for change. However this year the context had changed: by now many people have been learning about Palestine in the UK through such work and Israel’s appalling actions in Palestine were themselves alerting people to the urgent need for change. We felt that now people did not need to go to Palestine in order to find out enough to have reasons to be active. Our job should be to encourage interested people to listen to reports from Palestinians and work for change, including helping Palestinians to come here to speak to an ever wider group of people.

Visits from Palestine and the Building Hope | Voices from Palestine project

This year, the Building Hope project that had started in 2022 really came into its own. We are now working widely across England and Wales with partners of many sorts – Palestine twinning groups, Palestine solidarity groups (not always PSC), youth organisations and groups of CADFA members in particular places. In Palestine, we

have many partners from our work on visits to and from Palestine over the years, and with these partners ran the Beyond the Checkpoints project for another year. In Feb-March we ran a youth visit (reviewed in last year’s annual report and the report that can be found on our website). The strong outcomes of that visit pushed us to run three visits from Palestine this year and to continue the Beyond the Checkpoints project for young people in Palestine although it was a difficult year.

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Planning and training visit to the UK

We are working to pass on what we have learned over some years to a wider group of individuals and to other groups and involving more people in central parts of our work. We gave importance this year to clarifying understandings with everyone we were working with. We ran training sessions for people central to our projects before our visits, during our planning visit in July and throughout the February Building Hope Conference visit. Feedback from all of these was good.

In July, we brought our Palestinian co-ordinator to London to take part in a planning and training visit to reach all of the new partners in our upcoming youth visit. This was an opportunity to work with our partners, establish understandings, train in policies and procedures necessary for the youth visit (such as around safeguarding ) and strengthen the team that was going to run the youth visits. It also gave an opportunity for him to speak at a number of meetings around the country about the current situation in Palestine. (list places Bradford, Blackburn, Derby, Birmingham, Cornwall, Hackney, Camden) We showed the youth visit film from the Feb-March visit during the trainings and meetings and this was well-received.

Beyond the Checkpoints

This exciting project that was now in its third year has usually taken a group of Palestinian young people from nine or ten different towns, villages and checkpoints to visit each other’s home places. The young people develop their human rights advocacy skills by learning to present their own home town to the others.

We also organise opportunities for the participants to talk to young people from the UK on Zoom and give them the opportunity to apply for a CADFA youth visit to the UK. We have found the young people on our recent visits to the UK have really benefited from the project and come stronger and more confident on the visits as a result.

In the current conditions in the West Bank and Jerusalem, we had to consider carefully whether the Beyond the Checkpoints project should be run this summer. For the young people, the joy of the project had been the visits to other parts of their country but the slowness and danger of the roads between towns made it impossible to take forty young people around the country this year.

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Our Palestine co-ordinator discussed this with the partners and they each found three or four young people who joined the project regularly on Zoom. Each group contributed presentations about their own home place and discussed the other participants’ presentations. Each small group then had the chance to present on Zoom to people from the UK through our ‘Let’s Talk About Palestine’ sessions – and they said that they had enjoyed the project, although this method was obviously second-best to the visits that have usually happened. At the end of the project, thirty-five young people applied to join CADFA visits to the UK.

Beyond the Checkpoints youth visit to the UK October

We had a wonderful youth visit from Palestine in October. We would like to thank all the friends of CADFA who worked so hard to raise money and to support the young visitors on this project.

This was the second youth visit in 2024.There is so much to say about these amazing visits.Even in this time of horror, both of these visits (like the

women’s visits before them, in March and July 2023) showed the Building Hope | Voices from Palestine project living up to its name. We have run dozens of visits since 2005 and always find that they are well worth all the hard work that they entail, that people love meeting Palestinian visitors and that they love to come, that there is massive enjoyment (as well as tiredness!), massive learning and fueling of motivation to be active. We have made them central over the years as they are such a good way of new people meeting Palestinians, of people new and old learning more, of spreading awareness, building the movement for human rights in Palestine…. but these visits, this year, have been extraordinary.

Extraordinary for the people in and around them and for the level of energy they created.. We ended each visit with a crowd of really excited young people who had had a wonderful time, hundreds of people who had helped in one way or another across the UK and thousands of people each time who had met the visitors or seen them

in schools, community events and public meetings – and new groups wanting to be involved. We have pictures and short films and reports articles and speakers and an optimism that people really need at this dire time.

Extraordinary also for the seeds they have planted for the future. Some (not all) of our partner groups were twinning groups at the beginning of the project but the project has encouraged others. We were very pleased (for example) that our youngsters’ visit was cited as part of the

CADFA Trustees’ Annual Report 2024-25 6

background to the twinning that Brent hope to make with Nablus. Ideas of new links arose in Cornwall, Bradford, Bedford and of renewing links in Birmingham.

We were very happy that this group included partners who were new to us and

reached people for whom such visits, and the subject of Palestine was new.

After a long wait for visas we took the young Palestinians via Cambridge to the north (Lancashire and Yorkshire), through the Midlands (Derby and Birmingham) and south to Cornwall before returning to London. It was a wonderful visit where they met people of many different ages, took part in many different happy and creative activities. There were many memorable highlights of this visit – from the fierce hail that suddenly struck them on the top of Pendle Hill, to the vigorous dabke in meetings of hundreds of people and the boat trip in Cornwall where the Palestinians whose grandparents were from the Mediterranean coast sang songs about Jaffa at

the top of their voices.

The young people were extremely happy (see their report here: https://www.cadfa.org/wpcontent/uploads/2024/11/24YV-visitors-reportsin-English.pdf Their liveliness and joy touched the hundreds of people they met in schools, youth clubs, leisure activities, touristic and community events. They gathered video during the visit to be made into another youth visit film. New links were made, new interests formed and once again in the middle of horror we felt that this project – difficult though it was – built help and determination for change in a positive direction.

Building Hope | Voices from Palestine conference visit

In February 2025, we held a very special visit to the UK, which brought leaders from the Beyond the Checkpoints project in Palestine and people

active in the Building Hope| Voices from Palestine project in Palestine and the UK. This meant that people from several twinning groups in both countries were with us. The aim was for a

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serious discussion with an

equal input from people in both sides, looking at what we were doing and thinking about next steps.

Fifteen Palestinian visitors joined us. They came from (Hebron, Al Walajeh, Abu Dis, Silwan, New Askar Camp, Beit Leed and Jenin Camp. The visit began with three days in London for discussion and training together before dividing the group into seven strands, each

two or three to a different place where our UK partners had worked to make a programme of visits and meetings for the visitors. These places were Pendle (with Burnley), Sheffield, Birmingham, Bedford, Hackney, East London (Tower Hamlets, Newham and Redbridge) and Camden (with Islington) These were formal and informal twinning groups (Pendle had long had a formal twinning agreement and Sheffield a new one), one new partnership (Hackney) and Birmingham which had had a link to Ramallah many years previously and our partners considered reviving it. East London had grassroots twinning links as do Camden.

Outside Camden, Mayors met our visitors but in Camden (as recently) we had no answer from the Mayor’s Office calling on the Mayor to welcome our visitors from Abu Dis until we did a small demo outside the Camden Town Hall.

The many visits to groups across the country included women to women’s centres, academics to universities, workers to trade unions and we also had visits to students’ unions and students’ university classes.

The whole Palestinian group and many of our UK partners reconvened for the conference in Birmingham. After this, a small group of visitors visited mid-Wales for yet another positive public event and then everyone to London for final events and a serious evaluation and we started to turn our attention to the challenge of running three youth visits to the UK in the following year.

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The Building Hope conference and outcomes from the visit

We had a full house for our conference and with all of our Palestinians and British friends a good set of speakers. Kamel Hawwash from the Birmingham Palestinian community gave a speech welcoming the delegates to Birmingham. Ayoub Khan the local MP was able to join and give a short speech. The UK and Palestinian teams reported back on their week’s efforts in their UK communities telling us what had worked, what had been disappointing, lessons and next steps for the future. The workshops

were an important part of the day, in the morning focusing on grassroots links with Palestine and in the afternoon on preparation for youth visits from Palestine.

It was very clear that the work we are doing is fruitful in terms of building and sustaining links of all shapes and sizes. The group of visitors was once again very happy (though some rather tired) and a very big number of people from the UK were involved and there was largely positive feedback. Friends from Bradford newly made an agreement with friends in Hebron and announced it on the conference day. People involved in the new formal twinning between Sheffield and Nablus thought this visit got their twinning off to a new start. Hackney made links with Silwan through our efforts. Old links with Ramallah were renewed in Birmingham.

Even more important in the longer term was the big number of meetings across a wide number

of communities where people could hear Palestinians talk and be inspired to work hard (or harder) for Palestinians’ human rights. In Camden and Islington our old local partners were involved and we met new ones too (we also had a demonstration outside the Council as our Mayor -unlike mayors in the other places - chose not to meet the Abu Dis visitors. There were meals, talks and joint activities of many kinds. Overall it seems that Building Hope | Voices from Palestine is a good name for a project including such visits.

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Campaigning

As the shocking genocide continued, we took part in local and national protest action. We continued to write to our Camden MP Keir Starmer and direct petitions towards him, but held little hope of changing his position as he had taken clear sides with Israel and its actions and led a government that continued to arm Israel as well as discourage voices of protest. We thought that the most important thing in these terrible circumstances was to join with anyone we could, educate anyone we could, encourage everyone we could to take a stand and keep going.

We were challenged by Zionists in response to an advertisement that we put in the local paper – They took exception to the use of the words ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid’ and clearly were pressing the local paper not to publish such ads in the future. We wrote a statement in fresponse to this which is on our website and reproduced in

the appendix E but have not been able to include similar ads in the local paper since that time.

We had placard-painting meetings and joined local and national demos. We wrote a number of letters to the local paper. We made a number of leaflets that we distributed from our local demonstrations. We took part in

demonstrations to Camden Council, at first about ceasefire and then about divestment. The Councillors did not want to listen and on their Mayor-making day in April 2024, we “made” a ceasefire Mayor in a mock Council meeting on the pavement outside which included voices from Palestine and a mock motion that was formally voted on and passed. The ‘ceasefire motion’ that was passed that day is in Appendix D

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Events in Britain

Events at Café Palestina

At the beginning of the year, our ‘Lets Talk About Palestine’ meetings were always in-person on Wednesdays at Café Palestina and out of these Camden Friends of Palestine was started. We originally hoped that

this would be a local network of the different groups interested in Palestine but it became a separate group and moved out to meet separately. We aim to be good friends and colleagues of every group we can that is working for human rights in Palestine and indeed the number of groups of all kinds working on this issue was multiplying fast across the country. We were increasingly pulled into running the Let’s Talk About

Palestine meetings sometimes on Zoom as people across the country wanted to take part.

Café Palestina was a good venue for all sorts of creative activities. We’d like to thank Yussuf for the Poetry 4 Palestine series, Les and Anne for Music 4 Palestine most months, Noura for Tatriz which took place three or four times during the year and Fiona for her creative sessions including placard painting. We had speakers in person when we could: our own visitors from Palestine and Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh from Bethlehem.

Camden Palestine Day July

Once again, we ran a special outdoor event at Calthorpe Community Garden on 14[th] July. We chose to call it Camden Palestine Day rather than ‘festival’ as in the current context it was not possible to suggest a celebration. We took advantage of the presence of our Palestinian coordinator who gave a talk.Other parts of the day were music, Palestinian cooking and eating, art work, tatriz, stalls and much more.

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Members, volunteers and partner groups

There was a steady interest in CADFA leading to an increase in members and volunteers both in London and outside. Café Palestina helped this to some extent through offering Arabic classes

and events at a lower cost to members.

We had many new partners of different kinds – some groups came together to support visits and others were well-established youth groups or Palestineoriented organisations. This year, our project partners the UK were (named by places):

Youth visit partners 2024-5: Derby, Birmingham, Pendle, Blackburn, Bradford, Cornwall and East London.

Building Hope Conference visit partners 2025: Bedford, Sheffield, Pendle, Birmingham, East London, Hackney, Radnor (Powys) & Chester.

We aimed to communicate clearly to our members and other interested people through frequent emails and a series of What’s App groups that focus on action – as well as through the Wednesday and other meetings. We produced many leaflets leaflets and small booklets mainly around the time of visits. We know the importance of social media and film but we need to improve our skills in both of these! .

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Financial report

During 2024/5 our finances continued to improve. Having started the year with a surplus of £17.2k, we finished it with a surplus of £30.4k. Our income increased from £145.4k to £186.8k (+£41.5k or 29%). Our costs increased more; from £124.8k to £173.7k (+£48.9k), but they were still less than our income.

Note our accounts are “cash accounts” which means they accurately reflect the situation in our accounts at midnight on 31[st] March. A number of payments (in and out) that relate to the year come in late (e.g. tax to HMRC; gift aid income). Also a few payments (in and out) relate to activities for the next (current) year (e.g. our next youth visit). If we adjust for these as best we can, our “real” end-of-year position is about a surplus of £24.9k (£5.5k worse).

The biggest increase in our income (£24.1k) was through “income generation” (i.e. stalls / events to raise money). Note however the costs of income generation went up by £22.6k, so the contribution to our surplus was about £21.0k. Most of the increase was from sales and events at the Café.

Membership income was up £6.4k reflecting a steady increase in membership. Membership was up 7% (from 274 to 294 at end of year) and membership income was up about 17% (slightly larger increase than the previous year).

General donations were up from £14.1k to £20.4k. Most of this was individual donations, including some where visitor hosts returned payments for expenses.

The situation in Palestine stopped us running visits there. The two main visits here (the youth visit and the twinning visit; there was also a planning / training visit for an individual) cost around £18k each in direct costs. Fundraising for visits raised about £54k. Whilst this more than covered the direct costs, it should be noted that these visits take a lot of organising, so we also need to cover some of our core costs (salaries etc). The surplus helped with the core costs and left us in a good position to run further visits next year.

Our improved financial situation has finally allowed us to make our “pension pot” sufficient to fund the amount owed to our worker in Abu Dis when he retires (in lieu of pension, as in his contract). Our financial situation also allowed us to fund a salary increase for our director (10%; from June; her first one since 2007!) and to boost her pension from the statutory minimum. We also funded an increase (10.6%) to our worker in Abu Dis from December (we agreed an increase from April 2025 for our assistant).

We would like to thank Café Palestina for its help to CADFA through events, funds from Arabic classes, encouraging new memberships and direct donations; the teams running the Marchmont Street stall and other stalls throughout the year; the volunteers who helped with the regular fundraising events such as Music 4 Palestine; the MC fund for a grant to help with transport and accommodation for our October youth visit; and to our partners and a number of individuals both for fantastic efforts in fundraising. Our visit expenses were often lower than their real cost as we had many gifts in kind to support the visits.

Our accounts (see below) show us ending the financial year in credit by £30,405 (after starting the year in credit by £17,216).

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CADFA ACCOUNTS - 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025

2023/4 2024/5
CADFA Charity
Opening Balance -3,386 17,216
Income
Project grants 0 0
Other project Income 47,643 56,834
Membership 38,354 44,770
Donations 14,140 20,374
Visits to Palestine 384 0
Income generation (events, stalls
etc) 40,747 64,842
Gift Aid 4,097 25
Total Income 145,365 186,846
Expenditure
Abu Dis running costs 5,959 5,389
Camden running costs 20,688 30,427
Staf costs 51,985 55,147
Project expenditure 19,170 38,878
Small project costs 3,497 0
Visits to Palestine cost 2,233 0
Income generation costs 21,232 43,816
Total Expenditure 124,763 173,656
CADFA Outturn 17,216 30,405
Opening Balance -3,386 17,216
Total Income 145,365 186,846
Total Expenditure 124,763 173,656
Surplus (Defcit) Carried Forward 17,216 30,405
Surplus (Defcit) for the Year 20,601 13,189
Reconciliation
Account Balance at 31 March 2025 49,605
Pension Pot -19,200
Loans Outstanding 0
Late Transfers In 0
Late Transfers Out 0
Total 30,405

CADFA Trustees’ Annual Report 2024-25 14

BALANCE SHEET

UK Bank Balances
Cash in hand or in transit
Net Assets
Surplus at 1 April
Surplus / (Defcit) for the Year
Added to Pension Pot
Surplus at 31 March
Represented by:
UK Bank Accounts
NIS held in Abu Dis
Jordanian Dinars held in Abu Dis
US Dollars held in Abu Dis
Balance on Camden Cash
account
Balance on Stall Cash Account
Balance on Cafe Account
Balance on Just Giving
Checkout
Balance on PayPal account
Balance on SumUp account		 As at
31st
March
2024
£
30,376.31
39.53
£30,415.84
3,814.36
20,601.49
6,000.00
£30,415.85
30,376.31
-145.68
1.08
1,706.17
-163.34
-122.72
-1,911.13
0.00
172.79
502.36
30,415.84		 As at
31st
March
2025
£
55,040.79
-5,435.68
£49,605.11
30,415.85
13,189.26
6,000.00
£49,605.12
55,040.79
-25.65
0.99
476.27
-2.71
-42.23
-5,973.65
0.00
131.31
0.00
49,605.11

CADFA Trustees’ Annual Report 2024-25 15

Our objectives for 2025-26

Our ‘charitable objects’ (our aims as a charity) are as they always have been (appendix A). The objectives set last year (appendix C) will be a good checklist for this year too.

This year we aim in particular

We hope that there is better news as this year (2025) goes on, as this the most terrible time of the world that we remember. At the time of writing people are starving, dying and being maimed through bombing, displaced from homes, facing home demolitions and living through trauma all over Palestine. All of our work and effort is dedicated to building a wider movement to stop this happening and we thank everyone everywhere who puts humanity first.

Thank yous

We would like to thank the CADFA staff team – Nandita, Abed and Meg - for their hard work

Also the wonderful on-going volunteers including Annika and her stall team who kept the Marchmont St stall going and the very many volunteers (too many to name) who helped on events, stalls demonstrations and particularly many helping with the visits.

A massive thank you to everyone who helped with fundraising in so many ways.

And to our great visitors and those friends who didn’t come but stayed in touch with us in Palestine.

You are all so important in keeping CADFA going and making it meaningful – thank you all.

In memoriam

This year we were very sorry to suddenly lose our old friend Angie, who had been active with CADFA since visiting Abu Dis in 2019. She regularly volunteered on the Marchmont St stall and helped regularly with our visits. We also appreciated the poetry she wrote particularly when she had just come back from Palestine. Angie died in her sleep in November 2024.

We were also really saddened by the death of young Raymi, a musician who performed with his lovely

parents at several CADFA events including our Festival this summer and was tragically drowned in July 2024. We send so much love to both families.

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Appendices

Appendix A - CADFA objectives

From the CADFA constitution as amended November 2013

The Charity’s object is to promote human rights (as set out in the International Declaration of Human Rights and subsequent United Nations conventions and declarations) and respect for international humanitarian law in Palestine by all or any of the following means:

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Appendix B -Trustees 2024-25

Peter Ashan (chair)

Cristina Piccoli (secretary)

Hugh Wallis (treasurer)

Fiona Millar (minutes secretary)

Rumana Choudhury

Last AGM was on 10th January 2025.

Appendix C -The objectives we set for 24-25:

Appendix C -The objectives we set for 24-25:
We said: Main areas we want to work on to strengthen and sustain
this work are		 How did we
do?
Extending our membership, involving new people across the country,
encouragingour members to be active		 Did well
Working with existing partner organisations and with new organisations
both in Camden and across the country		 Did well
Developing and extending the**Building Hope Voices from Palestine**
project
Building our sustainability both fnancial and through training more
CADFA leaders for diferent aspects of the work		 Did well
We will specifcally work on
Regular human rights reports on Zoom and inperson Regular talks
Public events focusingon human rights in Palestine Did well
Publications on social media and in print on human rights in Palestine Kept this up but
want to improve
Visits to Palestine - if the situation allows it Notpossible
Visits from Palestine to the UK: a second youth visit as part of Beyond
the Checkpoints and (subject to funding) another, possibly including
students and women to keepthose links alive.		 Did well
School links and school materials on Palestine and human rights Some visits to
schools -want to
make more
material
Advocacy work (including Beyond the Checkpoints)and human rights
campaigning		 Did well
Working for a ceasefre and an end to thegenocide.

CADFA Trustees’ Annual Report 2024-25 18

Appendix D – Camden ceasefire motion

This was written by CADFA for a staged ‘council meeting’ outside Camden Town Hall in April 2024

Camden Ceasefire Council notes that

( Genocide ) Since October last year, around 40000 Palestinians in Gaza are known to have been killed by Israeli bombing and many more are lost under the rubble of homes or disappeared into imprisonment with no one knowing what is happening but the repeated discovery of mass graves with people found shot with their hands tied behind their backs. More people have died as a result of deprivation of food, clean water and medical care.

Tens of thousands of people have been disabled. Hospitals, universities, schools and homes have all been destroyed as well as historical mosques and other cultural centres. Hundreds of academics, doctors, poets, journalists have been killed and the majority of the population have been moved from their homes and continue to be pushed from place to place. This terror is happening at a massive rate and Israel is refusing to stop, even when asked by the International Court of Justice – which thinks that the charge of genocide is plausible, even when the United Nations passes ceasefire motions.

( Matters to everyone ) This savage onslaught affects people across the world not only because of the sorrow people are feeling for the people of Gaza and the desperate wish for the violence and the inhumanity to cease, but because of the effect it has on the world order. The human rights declarations, the Geneva Conventions, the international courts that were set up to guard against genocide and abuse are all shown to be meaningless.

( Apartheid ) The Ceasefire Council notes that the issue that has come to a head since 7[th] October was going on for decades before that. Accepting the idea of an ethnic state and since the beginning allowing it to dispossess the other people who were living there has led to an apartheid described by some South Africans as worse than the apartheid was in South Africa, and to human rights violations that have worsened every year.

( Free speech ) The issue of Israel/Palestine has often been misrepresented. The IHRA definition of anti-semitism has helped to conflate anti-semitism and legitimate criticism of Israel (which are separate). The issue of Israel/ Palestine has been misrepresented as a problem between religions (which is not right). School materials often suggest a ‘balance’ between Israel and Palestine (which is fictitious in a context of dramatic power imbalance).

( Human rights ) To solve all of these problems we need to ensure a proper focus on equality and human rights and respect for international law.

CADFA Trustees’ Annual Report 2024-25 19

( Camden cares ) There are huge movements across the world to stop the genocide and the apartheid . In Camden, too, the Camden Ceasefire Council notes the huge concern and in particular in the last seven months – the numerous letters, petitions with thousands of signatures, lobbying, events, demonstrations and now student encampments in universities. The Council further notes that many groups within the borough have worked hard over many years, campaigning against the violent apartheid in Israel and Palestine that goes back decades, building friendship and cultural links with Palestine and demanding consistency in our approaches to human rights and equality – which are for everyone.

( Camden will speak out ) Trust in the words of politicians who talk of humanity evaporates when they support, excuse or stay silent on abuses especially on the scale of what is happening in Gaza at the moment. Camden (Ceasefire Council) will no longer stay silent on apartheid and genocide in Palestine as it is in the interests of Camden people and of humanity that we speak out.

Camden Ceasefire Council is clear that a council can have a role to play on international issues and is proud of the support that Camden gave to anti-apartheid action on South Africa in particular. Camden will seek to be remembered proudly in the aftermath of this terrible time too as a council that stood for equal human rights and for the end of injustice.

When the first demands for action against the genocide in Gaza reached Camden, they were for ceasefire. That is crucial, but as the Israeli government has made it very clear that it will not be limited by international law or bound by the judgements of the ICJ or the UN or any international body that wants to bring the racist violence to an end, the time has come for sanctions.

Camden Ceasefire Council resolves to

1 - Demand that the government urgently help end the genocide:

3- Ensure free speech and critical thinking in relation to Israel/Palestine

CADFA Trustees’ Annual Report 2024-25 20

Appendix E In response to ‘The Telegraph’

Statement by Trustees of CADFA (Camden Abu Dis Friendship Association) 20[th] May 2024

In response to the Telegraph’s article on 11th May and the Jewish Chronicle article on May 14[th] 2024 about our ad in the Camden New Journal.

“..the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world, Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind ..”

Again, article 2: our emphasis: “ Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.”

We completely believe this and act on it.

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CADFA Trustees’ Annual Report 2024-25 22

“disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind.”

The urgent thing at this terrible time is to achieve a situation where human rights are in place and the barbarous acts end.

CADFA Trustees May 2024

CADFA Trustees’ Annual Report 2024-25 23

Appendix F – The human rights year in Abu Dis

The background to genocide – apartheid

Abu Dis (Camden’s partner town in a grassroots twinning) is one of three towns in the East Jerusalem suburb, cut off from Jerusalem for the past twenty-plus years by the Israeli Separation Wall. When we first knew it, the focus of many people’s lives was still Jerusalem for work, schools, health, shopping (although that was increasingly difficult). It is many years now since the Wall and its heavy checkpoints were fully implemented along with a system of different-coloured ID cards that allowed some to go to Jerusalem and blocked others, and of military ‘permissions’ that needed to be applied for if people needed to go to hospital, for example.

During these twenty years we have written about the fierceness of the apartheid system that Israel has been locking into place in the area since the occupation started– you can see stories in our books[i] and previous reports about the ways that people local to Abu Dis (just like in other parts of Palestine) have had land taken – on which in many cases Israeli settlements have been built - and been subject to systematic discrimination in every part of their lives - movement restrictions, military violence, house invasions and imprisonment, disruptions to education, family life and work. Israel has defined people on the basis of religion/ethnicity since its beginning in 1948 and has deemed Palestinians as lower- than-second-class in their own country from that time. Its efforts have been to control Palestinians in a wider area (including the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza from 1967) by pushing them into smaller and smaller parcels of land.

The Oslo agreement brought further complications including the division of the country into areas A, B and C (Israel immediately started building on area C) and through the creation of a Palestinian Authority that wasn’t allowed real authority. And while the world is busied with the prospect (red herring perhaps?) of a twostate solution, Israeli governments have progressively built on the West Bank land and begun the process of annexing parts of it into Israel.

This year

This year (2024-25), the Israeli project of taking over Palestinian land was in full force. The very far-right settlers’ movement was controlling the Israeli government and its leaders like Ben Gvir and Smotrich were at once making speeches about their aim to drive Palestinians out and taking terrible, concrete steps towards this end. In Gaza, terrible things were being done to the

CADFA Trustees’ Annual Report 2024-25 24

people– they were bombed and pushed from their homes and starved; there were horrendous atrocities -torture, disappearance, rape, attacks on journalists, health workers, universities, schools, hospitals, archaeological sites and homes in every city.

At the beginning of the year (in April 2024) there were huge movements across the world calling for ceasefire but (apart from a one-week pause earlier than that) there was no ceasefire till January 2025. Prisoner releases from both Gaza (Israeli hostages) and the West Bank (Palestinians) revealed in particular the awful treatment, torture and lack of food that the

Palestinians had endured in prison (where very often they had had no trial). The ceasefire was broken by Israel in March 2025, resuming fierce bombings and displacement of Palestinian people, with Israeli politicians stating clearly that they wanted to move them south and preferably out of the country – In this they seemed to be supported by a dismaying 85% of Israelis[ii] . Israel blocked the entry of food and aid and a serious famine was added to disease, bombings and misery of all sorts.

Meanwhile also in January, Israel started a big military operation in the West Bank. Ben Gvir had been calling for this since autumn 2023 (before October) and it seemed that in order to persuade him and the settler movement to agree to the temporary ceasefire in Gaza in January, they were given

additional freedom in the West Bank. The operation led to the killings of hundreds of people, destruction of refugee camps with attacks both from the air (fighter planes in civilian areas) and on the ground (destroying homes and infrastructure), fierce movement restrictions and a new intensity of military and settler violence across the West Bank. In many parts of the West Bank, villagers were terrorised by ‘radical settlers’ using stones, guns, fire and the support of the IDF to push them out of their fields and take over their agricultural areas. Permission and encouragement was given for the further spread of Israeli settlements and new settlements began to be built.

Living in Abu Dis 2024-25

Every aspect of life in Abu Dis was affected by the occupation apartheid and life and human rights violations got harder for people this year.

Movement

There was a distinct change in atmosphere in Abu Dis and the whole of the East Jerusalem suburb after October 2023 (as people became more confined, it seemed increasingly that Aizariyeh, Abu Dis, Sawahreh though they had separate councils were really one unit). People travelled very much less across the country. Jerusalem was cut off to most people most of the

time – permissions to go there were suspended or not given – and the West Bank roads were dangerous. At some stages it was impossible to go in and out of the East Jerusalem area with so many checkpoints and blockages around the towns. But also inside the area, the heavy presence of the army was new; in Abu Dis, it became familiar to see the army in particular near the university, near the youth club, near the roundabout and there were frequent flying

CADFA Trustees’ Annual Report 2024-25 25

checkpoints daytime and night time, all affecting people’s journeys to schools, universities, to the market, to work.

Problems with water, sewage, electricity and the issue of rubbish

Water supply was now a real problem for local people, winter or summer. In the nearby Israeli settlements, lawns could have sprinklers, houses could have swimming pools and mains

supply for their drinking water. In Palestinian towns such as Abu Dis, people were dependent on weekly or twice-weekly pumping of water into tanks on their roofs and there just wasn’t enough. Abu Dis has a water well in Wadi al-Jheer but the Israelis have a meter and restrict the amount the Palestinians can take. According to Abu Dis Water Society, Israel has allowed Abu Dis the same amount of water since 1990, but the number of people has gone up substantially in that space of time and the shortage of supply leads to problems for household water supply and also, sadly, sometimes between people.

Electricity is similarly limited in the local area and in recent years there have been power cuts every other day or so because of surges when demand goes up – this happens specially when the weather is very hot or very cold.

Israel has forced a complete change of system in handling rubbish, which is causing real problems for local people. Rubbish used to be collected by the local council and dealt with in the local area, but Israel doesn’t allow this anymore so rubbish vans have to travel to Bethlehem or even Hebron to get rid of rubbish. Both of these cities are the other side of the Container checkpoint which is frequently closed. In such a case, the council can’t deal with it and there is now rubbish piling up in the local valleys and in the streets.

The problem of sewage in the West Bank goes back years; there has never been the opportunity for Palestinians to build the infrastructure they have needed to deal with sewage as the population has continued to rise. Since the beginning of the Palestinian Authority, there has been a plan to build a sewage infrastructure and this has been budgeted for. However the Israelis refuse to allow the PA to carry this out, they say for security reasons. In the local Israeli settlements, there are some sewage systems built on Palestinian land and other sewage pours from the settlements on to Palestinian agricultural lands, poisoning it and going to the Dead Sea itself. In Abu Dis there is no civic infrastructure to treat or deal with sewage. Families with houses build septic tanks near their homes but increasingly people live in flats in big towers. There the septic tanks often overflow and there is a lot of leakage of sewage both underground and over the ground throughout the town already causing serious environmental issues and threatening worse for the future.

CADFA Trustees’ Annual Report 2024-25 26

Education and health

Abu Dis has nursery, primary and secondary schools as well as Al Quds University but children and students do not get the right to study peacefully. Since October 2023, children have been very uncertain about whether they will find their schools open on any day. The school buildings closed in October 2023 and stayed closed till the end of the school year. Young people studied remotely using Teams which was hard for people whose families didn’t have computers in the home.

Since September 2024, the schools have been open again with a reduced week (four days instead of five) to deal with several issues: to cut travel for teachers in the dangerous conditions and also the fact that the PA didn’t have enough money to pay the teachers. In addition to this, sudden invasions of the town by soldiers, checkpoints, tear gas and sometimes shooting can often shorten or end a school or college day. Following the frequent army invasions in the night, the army often stays in the town into the mornings which can prevent the schools from feeling it is safe to open. One estimate is that another five days a month have been lost to most schools in this month. So the children and students have lost a lot of education in the West Bank as well as in the complete disaster of Gaza.

Abu Dis has a health centre but no hospitals. People still depend on hospitals in Jerusalem which has real problems for patients and also for their families. Travelling in an ambulance from Abu Dis to the hospital has taken a long time ever since the Separation Wall was built, always with waits and problems in coordination with the Israelis. Now it takes at

best four hours and often up to eight to move a patient from Abu Dis to Jerusalem. In addition to this, the Israelis frequently refuse to let West Bankers through into hospital, and it is also a problem when a patient is allowed through but no one is allowed to accompany them. This can mean that patients or their families choose to go to Bethlehem or Ramallah. There are real difficulties in both of those (the big Container checkpoint for example) and these cities don’t have all the specialisms that Jerusalem can offer, meaning that some people have to go to Jordan for the treatment they need.

One of the serious problems endured by family after family is the difficulty of reaching close family members who are in hospital. For Palestinians, the Israelis have a system of ‘permissions’ which were often withheld, even before this year in which they were usually withheld. This means that close people can be ill, have babies, even die without the support that any family will want to give their loved ones.

CADFA Trustees’ Annual Report 2024-25 27

Economy: work and land

Since October 2023, many people have been unable to work. The number of people who could get into Jerusalem has been severely cut back by Israel limiting permits. People working in health can get temporary permits but people who work in education, building and other sectors cannot.

Many sectors of the economy have collapsed: particularly small businesses including shops and providers of services like builders. The Palestinian Authority the biggest employer in the West Bank - is short of money as Israel takes and refunds tax to the PA and often withholds it. This year, the PA paid people a maximum of 70% of their wages,

Prices have also been rising. In Palestine people expect price control and previously the PA had a ministry of consumer protection. Now no-one relating to the PA can work East Jerusalem which means that big traders sell at any price they like; prices can rise extortionately. Now, prices are lower in the PA areas but very much

higher in areas like Abu Dis as (with transport being very difficult for everyone) there is no effective competition.

Land has been the centre of the issue in Palestine certainly for the past century. Many Palestinians used to work in agriculture but Israeli take-over has made it harder to work on the land and people have sought other employment. When Israelis occupied this area in 1967, they started to build Israeli settlements and these have extended all the time, dramatically since Oslo, with more settlements and more housing units in settlements being built all the time.

In 1967, Israel took over large swathes of land between the town and the Dead Sea and declared it a military area. This land still had owners, some of whom have been persuaded to sell their out-of-reach land to other Palestinians and some of this appears to have reached third parties (Israeli) who have been building and preparing new settlements in that eastern part of Abu Dis.

This year, with the settlers’ movement so powerful, there have been big announcements by Israel not only about new settlements but about annexation and taking over the land for good. The settlers’ movement is currently in a key position in the government and is saying that if western countries recognise the Palestinian state, they will annexe the West Bank.

Military violence and a lack of law

Israelis control the Palestinians through military aggression and military laws, confining and ordering them, invading houses and imprisoning people (see the examples below) but they do not provide any framework of security of security to help local people.

CADFA Trustees’ Annual Report 2024-25 28

The Palestinian Authority has a police station in Aizariyeh, next to Abu Dis, but they are almost powerless. Local people have examples of times when the Palestinian police arrested drug dealers only to have Israel force their release, or when they could do nothing to investigate when a local man was killed. Because there is no effective authority, people sometimes take law into their own hands.

There is also a growth of armed gangs in the area, shooting, threatening, sometimes attacking places and asking for protection money – some businesses have been punished by being set on

a ap fire. It is clear to local people that Se these gangs are supported by the Israelis, as there is a two-tier approach to the holding of weapons. If 2a there is any suspicion of someone holding a weapon, most people will ==a, - have their house raided by the army, but there are groups of people who = : have guns and no one challenges aaah them. It seems to local people that . these gangs are linked to the secret transfer of land that people think is - tm ee sold by Palestinians somehow to Se Israelis - part of Israeli plans to build more settlements.

A diary for this year

The issues above continued through out the year. The ‘diary’ below shows particular issues month by month. The items in quote marks were from CADFA posts during the year.

April 2024

The second part of Ramadan was in April. Going to Jerusalem in particular to pray in Al Aqsa Mosque was important to Palestinians but it was extremely difficult. All of the ‘terminals’ in the Israeli Wall around Jerusalem were closed except for Qalandia, and the people who had permits to pray on Friday (some women over 55 and men over 60, if the applied and were allowed ‘permits’) had to travel at least an hour on the east side of the Wall to get to Qalandia. But then they would meet hundreds of thousands of people from all over the West Bank and the crowding and difficulty were even worse than they have been for the past few years.

On 10th April, it was Eid day and the Israelis imposed a complete closure on Jerusalem and cut the north and south of the West Bank from each other.

On 15th April, there was a decision by the Israeli government – ‘the High Council for Planning’ to approve 2300 settlement units at Maale Adumim settlement and 300 new units at Qidar settlement. This followed the annexation of more than 2000 donums of land on the east of Abu Dis and Aizariyeh in between the two settlements in January 2024.

CADFA Trustees’ Annual Report 2024-25 29

On 22nd April, four young people were wounded with bullets after the Israeli army invaded Al Quds University and area, saying they were going to maintain the Israeli Separation Wall which they had built alongside the University. The Israeli army also said that the area was closed for the military which stopped the University and the local schools from running.

On 25th April, the Israeli army invaded the old side of Abu Dis, searched a house and arrested one young man and also invaded Aizariyeh where they searched other houses and arrested three young men.

May 2024

On 4th May, many people were affected by tear gas in the University and the area around. The Israeli army put a checkpoint near the University early in the morning which created chaos in the University, stopping the education day.

On 19th May, a young man from Bethlehem was wounded by Israeli soldiers at Container checkpoint when he was travelling south on his way home. Apparently he got out of the car to

get into another and they shot him, then arrested him and took him away in a military ambulance and closed the checkpoint in two directions for the rest of the day. This caused major problems for anyone needing to travel north or south in the West Bank.

June 2024

On 12th June at around midnight, around ten houses in the middle of Abu Dis were invaded, searched and seven young people were taken to the Israeli military camp. An old man in his seventies was wounded by bullets while he was driving to the mosque in Kubsa for the morning prayer – He had three bullets in his hands and was lucky, it seems, because the bullets hit the body of the car and lost some of their force before they hit him.

The seven young people were beaten and interrogated but all were released the next morning.

CADFA Trustees’ Annual Report 2024-25 30

On 13th June, the Israeli army invaded Abu Dis in the middle of the day. They came in from Aizariyeh and reached the area of the youth club. They stopped twice, once in the middle of Abu Dis (stopped the traffic, asked people for their IDs and took away the DVDs from the CCTV cameras near the shops) and near Abu Dis Youth Club where they invaded the Karameh Mall opposite where they attacked the owner , made a mess inside the place and took the camera DVDs away.

July 2024

On 1st July, three young people were arrested when the army invaded their houses in Ar Ras neighbourhood. The army searched their houses and stayed through the night in their homes.

On 22nd July, the anniversary of the killing by Israel of two young men, Youssuf Kashour and Mohammed Lafe in 2017, the Israeli army destroyed the memorial stone to the two on the

wall of the old graveyard and filled the area with tear gas.

On 30th July, the Israeli army invaded a house in Ar Ras and arrested a fourteen-year old and later released him on payment of a fine of 3000 NIS – he would later have to come to military court.

August 2024

“ 2nd August Don't forget the West Bank. Pictures sent from Abu Dis today show blockages on the roads to Jericho and Bethlehem - one of the many difficulties stopping many people in the West Bank from moving between towns. The pictures don't express the extent of the problems people are suffering under apartheid there - little water in the great heat (in contrast to the settlers' swimming pools and sprinklers), army aggression and invasions, checkpoints, killings (over 500 since last October), imprisonment (over 9000 new prisoners), unspeakable torture in jails, attacks on universities keeping students at home, house demolitions, land seizures, new settlements, settler aggression, lost jobs, unavailable hospitals (as new "permissions" to go to Jerusalem are not given by Israel), fears of all sorts as Israel imprisons people sometimes for Facebook posts, sometimes for nothing anyone can see. Things are much worse than awful in Gaza, they are very bad in Jerusalem and we must not forget the West Bank.

CADFA Trustees’ Annual Report 2024-25 31

“

5th August Waiting in the heat and hoping for the best. Morning pictures from Abu Dis and Aizariyeh with nobody around but the quiet menace of the Israeli Separation Wall always reminding of the apartheid occupation, the genocide and the threat of widening war.

“ 20th August " It's hard to raise a smile at all

after hearing what they've been going through" (report from Abu Dis following the release of some of the thousands of West Bank prisoners that Israel has taken since October last year, usually with no charge or trial. They take them when they want to, abuse them systematically and release them if they want to.

September 2024

“ 5th September We remember

Huthaifa and his camera from so many CADFA projects 10 or 12 years ago - he came to the UK on a student visit. We were so upset and worried to hear the Israelis imprisoned him 10 months ago.. so happy now to hear he has been freed!! So happy too to hear he has a new baby girl (while he was in prison) and we wish him, her mother

and the baby so much happiness... Now we need the release of the other 10,500

Palestinian prisoners, mainly arrested with no charge or trial - treated in a terrible way - and the end to the other daily horrors, fast

On 15[th] September, at the time of talks on prisoner exchange – there was a major invastion to Abu Dis and Aizariyeh by the Israeli army. They invaded and searched a number of houses and arrested twelve young people from the two towns (7 from Abu Dis, 5 from Aizariyeh).

CADFA Trustees’ Annual Report 2024-25 32

October 2024

On the 1[st] October, the Israeli army put a checkpoint in front of Al Quds University in the early morning. They started to chase boys from the local schools and threw tear gas which led to the closure of the schools and the loss of a school day. There are three schools next to the University – a middle school, a secondary school and also a nursery school. This means that even very young children were affected by the gas and the trouble around them.

On 12[th] October, the Israeli army invaded the area of Kubsa (where Aizariyeh and Abu Dis meet), invaded some houses and arrested three young people.

November 2024

On 4[th] November, a mosque on the west side of the Wall (not far from the University but separated from the area by the Separation Wall) was given a demolition order. The

Mosque had been built of corregated iron twenty years previously. People came early in the morning and found a demolition order waiting on the land (this issue has since been taken to court so it has not yet been destroyed – May 2025 - but people are not allowed to use it).

On 15[th] November, an Israeli settler drove into the town, going near the mosque in Kubsa while the Friday prayer was going on. He shouted that he wanted to destroy the mosque because his god told him he should do; people pushed him away and he drove down into the middle of Abu Dis. He got out of his car and started shouting again, stopped cars, asked for IDs, threatened

people that this was his God’s land. Some of the local young people put him in a car and drove him to the Maale Adumim police station. His car was set on fire. The police said he was a crazy man and apparently they themselves beat him – but still the army invaded the town and started to shoot randomly. A young girl student was injured in

her eye – she was looking out of the window of her accommodation when this chaos happened. There were many others wounded or suffering from tear-gas inhalation.

CADFA Trustees’ Annual Report 2024-25 33

On 19[th] November, there was an early morning invasion to Al Quds University – The Israeli army entered the campus, searched the guards’ rooms and the student council rooms. The father of Yamin Jaffal who was killed by the army in 2017 had in his room a collection of pictures of young people who had been killed since

  1. The room was messed up, the army tore the pictures from the walls and said that if they

were put back, they would come back again.

December 2024

“ 5th December We cannot forget the West Bank either, or Jerusalem. Yesterday we were told by a father in Abu Dis of his family's

experience the night before when the Israeli army

broke into his father's house and then his own, slashed all the tyres of local cars, and finally arrested his son, beating him up.

On 12[th] December, the Israeli army invaded the town in the early evening. a house in Ar Ras was set on fire from tear gas cannisters shot by Israeli soldiers. The family in the house suffered from the tear gas - The Palestinian Fire Department managed to stop the fire.

On 20[th] December, the Israeli army invaded nine houses in Abu Dis and at least ten houses in Aizariyeh. Five young people from Abu Dis were taken to the military camp and kept there overnight where they were beaten and interrogated. They were released the next day.

CADFA Trustees’ Annual Report 2024-25 34

“ 24 December 2024 Israeli army in Central Abu Dis now.” (pic below)

January 2025

On 4[th] January, the Israeli army invaded a house in Kubsah early in the morning and arrested three young men (brothers).

On 7[th] January, the Israeli army drove three military jeeps into the town. Near the youth club, they

stopped and threw tear gas and sound grenades towards shops – so the shop owners closed their shops and left. The army went to the university.

“ 18th January Living under

occupation. Abu Dis this morning. The photo is a bit confusing - it looks as if the soldiers stuck the Israeli flags on to the Palestinian sign at the roundabout in central Abu Dis? Clearly they are bullying local young people and we're told they beat them saying they had been celebrating the ceasefire in Gaza.

On 25[th] January, there was another night invasion to Kubsah. The army turned the families out of four houses, leaving them in the winter cold for several hours while they searched their homes. In the end, four young people were arrested.

On 31[st] January, a car was set on fire by Israeli army shooting live ammunition into it near the old graveyard near Abu Dis. This was in the early evening. Three young men were wounded with rubber bullets and the area was full of tear gas

CADFA Trustees’ Annual Report 2024-25 35

February 2025

“ On 9th February, This is not a moving

traffic jam: this is a complete stand-still of traffic for hours and hours imposed by Israel by closing the Container checkpoint of the main Palestinian road north and south through the West Bank, upsetting social relations and crippling the economy. We thought it was bad before, but since the ceasefire Israel has increased its obstacles to every part of Palestinian life.

“ On 10th February, Just one morning - all

so urgent - snippets of news today from visitors coming to us this week from Palestine and the West Bank later this week...

The Israeli settlers in Maale Adumim demanded that the traffic system outside the settlement was changed to be permanently in favour of the settlers. From 12th February onwards, the Palestinians were forced to use a little side road, leaving the roundabout outside the settlement for the use only of the settlers.

On 23[rd] February, the Israeli army put a checkpoint outside the University Mosque in the early morning, stopping people from using the mosque for the noon prayer. The checkpoint was there until the afternoon. The army then moved to the centre of Abu Dis near the youth club, and

CADFA Trustees’ Annual Report 2024-25 36

stayed there till late evening, shooting tear gas and stopping people and traffic from moving round the town.

March 2025

In the middle of the night, the Israeli army invaded three houses. The soldiers destroyed the main doors of the houses, took the families outside and arrested one man, beating him in

his house, taking him to the military camp, beating him again and releasing him later the same day.

“ On 19[th] March This was the night that the Israelis broke the ceasefire on Gaza. killed over 400 people in a matter of hours - and they continued to attack Palestinians and Palestinian places in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

“ On 24[th] March Stop the genocide which is getting worse and worse. Unspeakable in

Gaza with so many Israeli bombs and killing including in hospitals and groups of refugee tents - and also terror on all sides for Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

Yesterday's news was that Israel is pushing forward its annexation by treating THIRTEEN MORE Israeli settlements in the West Bank as part of Israel itself... a significant change of

administration.

CADFA Trustees’ Annual Report 2024-25 37

Another friend in Silwan has had her home demolished. In Hebron الخليلa Palestinian family went out for iftar and came back to find that Israelis (defended by the Israeli army) had moved in and taken over the house.

Our friends in New Askar camp tell of endless army invasions and our friends from Jenin camp have been displaced along with 20 thousand others, losing their homes and everything else "there is nothing left from Jenin Camp" we were told.

This picture of cars is from near Abu Dis

where the Israelis continue their endless rearrangement to prioritise Israeli settlements and constrict Palestinians - here by separating the road systems and hold up the Palestinian traffic.

This young man was imprisoned last October aged 17 and taken to Megiddo Prison. News came today that he has been killed.

A 41-year- old man, Mohamed Abu Hammad was killed in Aizariyeh by the Israeli army. He was

trying to drive down a side road to avoid the traffic chaos that was caused by the changes the Israeli army had put in place the previous month.

On 31[st] March, the Israeli army came in the morning and destroyed a stable for horses in Wad al Jheer and some temporary housing; they gave more demolition orders to a car wash and other farmers’ buildings in this area. Note, this area is for people in Abu Dis called Wad al-Jheer but the Israelis call it Wadi Abu Hindi, seeming to link it to a military zone lived in by Bedouin

CADFA Trustees’ Annual Report 2024-25 38

Appendix G – The human rights situation in our Beyond the Checkpoints partners’ hometowns 2024-25

In 2024-25, CADFA worked with partners in the following places through the Beyond the Checkpoints project. This is an indication of the human rights violations that people in those communities were facing at that time.

Aizariyeh and Abu Dis in the Jerusalem suburb

See report above

Al Walajeh, Bethlehem

Suffering badly from the Israeli Separation Wall, the closeness of the Israeli settlements, house raids and imprisonment. One young boy was killed at a checkpoint on his way out of the town. The children on the Beyond the Checkpoints project talked about the problems they had on the checkpoints going to school in Beit Jala.

Beit Leed, Tulkarem

The Israelis blocked the main road to the village was blocked – local people had to make new routes in and out of the village through agricultural land. The Israeli army took over a water well and put a checkpoint on it – settlers took over the water. A new Israeli settlement was started between Beit Leed and Qalqilya – The settlers first put removable housing on the land and then started to build.

Jenin Refugee Camp

Jenin has been right in the middle of Israeli aggression since October 2023 with a huge number of people killed (120 people up to the end of March 2025). Military attacks by the Israeli army from January 2025 including attacks from the air. Complete destruction of the refugee camp. Hundreds of housing units were destroyed, the main streets were dug up destroying the

CADFA Trustees’ Annual Report 2024-25 39

infrastructure. There was a determined attempt by Israel to drive people from their homes and around 25000 people were forced to move out of the camp. They include the children and their families from the Jenin group in Beyond the Checkpoints. They have found places to stay in Jenin town and across the north of the West Bank as Israel is not letting them go home.

New Askar Camp, Nablus

Like the other refugee camps, New Askar is under huge pressure from the Israelis who don’t want the refugees to remain as a category. There were soldiers in the town every day, homes damaged in army invasions and a worry that what was happening to other refugee camps like Jenin and Tulkarem would happen here in a matter of time. The camp is very crowded with only one empty area – a hill - available for young people to play and this has become very dangerous as Israeli snipers target young people who are there. One of the boys who came on a CADFA visit to the UK was shot in the knee on the hill – three young people of his age were shot and killed

Old City, Hebron

Palestinians in Hebron continued to suffer huge oppression – they are living under a strong curfew: they can move in the day but gates are closed at night and on Jewish holidays all day. There are extra checkpoints around the old city on top of the already-huge restrictions The children from the Beyond the Checkpoints project spoke about how they wanted to go out of their homes but it wasn’t safe. There were many military procedures against the area and the Ibrahimi Mosque has become largely taken over by settlers.

Qabalan, South Nablus

The Israeli army has been building new roads, bridges and tunnels across the north of the West Bank to separate settlers and Palestinians. A new gate put on the road to Qabalan which means that people can easily be prevented from coming out of the village if the Israeli army decides on this. Land confiscation orders have been given to take over thousands of acres of land belonging to the village. A new group of settlers have put temporary housing on a part of their land

Silwan, Jerusalem

Silwan, just south of the Old City of Jerusalem, is under massive threat from the Israeli project to take over Jerusalem only for Jews. Many of the Palestinian houses under threat of demolition and gradually people are being forced to demolish their own homes or pay the Israeli army to demolish them. The young people on the Beyond the Checkpoints project all know people whose houses have been demolished in this way or are under threat of demolition and this includes some of their own families. The Al Bustan Centre building was knocked down by the Israeli army but its work continues. At least one of the young people on the BTC project was arrested and then put under house arrest for a week. The defiance of local people is shown in the huge eyes painted on the buildings – “ Israel we can see what you are doing .”

i CADFA books are available from Café Palestina (in the shop or online) ii Haaretz May 27th

CADFA Trustees’ Annual Report 2024-25 40

CADFA ACCOUNTS - 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025

CADFA ACCOUNTS - 1 April 2024to 31 March 2025 CADFA ACCOUNTS - 1 April 2024to 31 March 2025 CADFA ACCOUNTS - 1 April 2024to 31 March 2025 CADFA ACCOUNTS - 1 April 2024to 31 March 2025 CADFA ACCOUNTS - 1 April 2024to 31 March 2025
2023/4 2024/5
CADFA Charity
Opening Balance -3,386 17,216
Income
Project grants 0 0
Other project Income 47,643 56,834
Membership 38,354 44,770
Donatons 14,140 20,374
Visits to Palestne 384 0
Income generaton (events, stalls etc) 40,747 64,842
Gif Aid 4,097 25
Total Income 145,365 186,846
Expenditure
Abu Dis running costs 5,959 5,389
Camden running costs 20,688 30,427
Staf costs 51,985 55,147
Project expenditure 19,170 38,878
Small project costs 3,497 0
Visits to Palestne cost 2,233 0
Income generaton costs 21,232 43,816
Total Expenditure 124,763 173,656
CADFA Outurn 17,216 30,405
Opening Balance -3,386 17,216
Total Income 145,365 186,846
Total Expenditure 124,763 173,656
Surplus (Defcit) Carried Forward 17,216 30,405
Surplus (Defcit) for the Year 20,601 13,189
Reconciliaton
Account Balance at 31 March 2025 49,605
Pension Pot -19,200
Loans Outstanding 0
Late Transfers In 0
Late Transfers Out 0
Total 30,405
BALANCE SHEET
As at
31st
March 2024		 As at
31st
March
2025
£ £
UK Bank Balances 30,376.31 55,040.79
Cash in hand or in transit 39.53 -5,435.68
Net Assets £30,415.84 £49,605.11
Surplus at 1 April 3,814.36 30,415.85
Surplus /(Deficit)for the Year 20,601.49 13,189.26
Added to Pension Pot 6,000.00 6,000.00
Surplus at 31 March £30,415.85 £49,605.12
Represented by:
UK Bank Accounts 30,376.31 55,040.79
NIS held in Abu Dis -145.68 -25.65
Jordanian Dinars held in Abu Dis 1.08 0.99
US Dollars held in Abu Dis 1,706.17 476.27
Balance on Camden Cash account -163.34 -2.71
Balance on Stall Cash Account -122.72 -42.23
Balance on Cafe Account -1,911.13 -5,973.65
Balance on Just GivingCheckout 0.00 0.00
Balance on PayPal account 172.79 131.31
Balance on SumUpaccount 502.36 0.00
30,415.84 49,605.11

Independent examiner's report on the accounts

Section A Independent Examiner’s Report

Report to the trustees/ members of

Charity Name

Camden Abu Dis Friendship Association

31 March 2025

On accounts for the year ended Charity no (if any)

111217

Set out on pages

2 and 3

(remember to include the page numbers of additional sheets)

Responsibilities and basis of report

I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity (“the Trust”) for the year ended 31 / 03/ 2023 .

As the charity trustees of the Trust, you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (“the Act”).

I report in respect of my examination of the Trust’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination, I have followed the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.

Independent examiner's statement

I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect:

I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

Signed:

23.08.25

Date:

Name:

Jo Tomalin

Relevant professional qualification(s) or body (if any):

Address:

311 Springvale Rd Sheffield S10 1LL Section B Disclosure

Only complete if the examiner needs to highlight matters of concern (see CC32, Independent examination of charity accounts: directions and guidance for examiners).

Give here brief details of any items that the examiner wishes to disclose .