Shira Livne joined ACRI in January 2021 to lead the Human Rights in the Occupied Territories Unit. From 2015-2017, Shira worked at HaMoked-Center for the Defense of the Individual, where she coordinated and led the activities of two teams to protect the freedom of movement of Palestinian citizens of Israel and residents of the Occupied Territories, including Gaza.
From 2019-2020, Shira was the J Street U Director at J Street, a United States-based organization that aims to promote American leadership to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through diplomatic means. Her role was to lead a nationwide team of regional campus organizers, including the student activities and training of young leaders on over sixty college campuses across the United States, and was also responsible for leading and mentoring the national student leadership.
In 2014, Shira founded the DocuRights project to protect the freedom of protest, along with social activist Sapir Slutzker-Amran. The project was later adopted by ACRI. Shira holds a BA in History and Political Science from Tel Aviv University (2014) and received an MA in Conflict Resolution from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. in 2019.
Avner Gvaryahu was born in the Israeli city of Rehovot and raised in the religious-Zionist community. During his army service, he served in the special forces of the paratroopers brigade, where he attained the rank of staff sergeant.
A year after he was discharged he joined Breaking the Silence as a researcher and tour guide with a focus on working with world Jewry and later became director of the Public Outreach.
He has been the organisation’s executive director since August 2017. Avner holds a BA in social work from Tel Aviv University and an MA from the Institute for the Study of Human Rights in Columbia University.
Issa Amro is a prominent human rights activist and founding member of many non-violent organisations in Hebron who work peacefully against Israeli occupation of the West Bank.
Issa is involved in monitoring the application of international human rights and humanitarian law in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Issa is founder and coordinator of Youth Against Settlements (YAS), a group of human rights defenders that strengthens the local community’s steadfastness against the expansion of illegal settlements and documents human right violations. For local and international media YAS is often the first source of information from the ground.
