Issa Amro is a human rights defender based in Hebron city, West Bank. Amro is the co-founder and former coordinator of Youth Against Settlements. He is the Executive Director of Working for Peace and Justice: Friends of Hebron.
Mr. Amro is popularly referred to as the “Palestinian Gandhi” and has received numerous awards and recognition for his work to encourage peaceful resistance in the movement against Israeli occupation. In 2009, Amro won the One World Media Award for his role in coordinating B'Tselem's video camera distribution project in Hebron to document human rights violations by Israeli soldiers and settlers. In 2010, Mr. Amro was declared Human Rights Defender of the Year in Palestine by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). In 2011, Mr. Amro was a guest of the US State Department as part of its International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP). In 2013 he was declared a Human Rights Defender by the European Union. His status as an EU HRD was reaffirmed in 2016 when indicted by the Israeli military court same year. In 2017, he was featured as part of Amnesty International's Write for Rights campaign. In 2023, Amro received the Global Advocacy Award from the Harvard Law School Advocates for Human Rights and the Harvard Human Rights Journal.
Mr. Amro has been featured on CNN, BBC, France 24, Al Jazeera, NPR, and in New York Times, The Nation, The New Yorker, The Guardian, Haaretz, and more. Mr. Amro has given testimony to the UN Human Rights Council on several occasions, and he testified about his mistreatment to the UN Commission of Inquiry on the OPT in 2023. In 2016, he received visits from members of Congress and separately spoke to members of the European Parliament and its president. In 2021, he met with U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.
Mr. Amro has founded numerous nonviolent human rights organizations in Hebron, including Youth Against Settlements (YAS), the Hebron branch of the International Solidarity Movement, the Arab Non-Violence Network, and the Hebron Defenders.
Mr. Amro has faced numerous assaults, and incidents of torture.
Twitter (X): @issaamro
