Unidentified men attacked the Courts Compound in Gaza City during the Eid Al Fitr holiday.
They broke into the Archive Departments at the Court of First Instance and Court of Appeal.
The Courts' personnel discovered the incident on Tuesday 16 October 2007; the first working day after the holiday.
It was reported that many case files were damaged during this attack.
According to Al Mezan's investigations, unknown men sneaked into the Compound through a ventilation outlet.
They broke a window and reached the corridor that leads to the Courts chambers and the Secretariat offices, where the case archives are kept.
They broke the archive rooms' locks and reached the archives of the Court of First Instance and the Court of Appeal.
Al Mezan's lawyer and fieldworker visited the crime scene and confirmed that many files were damaged.
Other files could have been stolen.
The Supreme Judicial Council decided to form a committee to follow up this incident and to make a register of the remaining files and make a list of the damaged and the lost files.
Notably, the Courts Compound has been without guards since the Executive Force members left it in the beginning of October 2007 as part of the transformation of the Force into a police force.
Al Mezan Center for Human Rights views with much concern the attack on the Courts Compounds.
This attack represents a serious threat against the judicial system and the operation of its institutions.
The Center strongly condemns the attack, which comes in the context of the escalation of the stat of insecurity in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Al Mezan therefore calls for a prompt investigation into the incident to unveil the circumstances under witch it was committed and the motives and the identity of the perpetrators.
Those must be brought them to justice without delay.
Al Mezan recommends that the Supreme Judicial Council uses an electronic archiving system to prevent any manipulation in the work of the judicial system and to protect its vital information.
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