Israel seals offices of ‘terrorist’ Palestinian rights groups

Measure comes despite protests from allies that Israel hasn’t supplied sufficient evidence.

Mohammad Shtayyeh at the Al-Haq Foundation in Ramallah on Friday. Picture: AFP

Israel sealed the offices of seven Palestinian non-governmental organisations, including those working on human rights and child protection, months after a decision to designate them as terrorist groups sparked an international backlash.

In an early-morning operation on Thursday, Israeli soldiers ­arrived at the offices of the Palestinian organisations inside the West Bank city of Ramallah, welded the doors closed and left notices declaring them shut. Soldiers also confiscated materials from some of the offices.

Israel says the groups operate as fronts for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a left-wing political party based in the West Bank and Gaza. It also has an armed unit that has carried out deadly attacks against Israelis and is designated a terrorist group by Australia, the US and EU.

All the organisations deny working on behalf of the PFLP and Israel has struggled to convince allies that the groups are fronts for terrorist outfits. Rights groups say the Israeli measures are part of a long history of cracking down on Palestinian activists in the occupied territories.

The seven organisations include some of the most longstanding and highly regarded non-profits in Palestinian civil ­society, including al-Haq, a human rights monitor, and al-Dameer, which provides legal aid to Palestinians facing Israeli military courts. Many of the NGOs receive European funding and regularly meet with diplomats.

In October, Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz designated six of the Palestinian civil society organisations terrorist groups. The classification enables Israel to jail those found to be members and sanction those who fund or assist them. Following criticism from allies, Israeli officials doubled down, insisting that evidence against the groups was iron-clad.

On Wednesday night, the ­Israeli military rejected appeals filed by some of the groups in the West Bank. Other appeals inside Israel are pending.

“The organisations operate under the guise of performing ­humanitarian activities to further the goals of the PFLP terrorist ­organisation, to strengthen the organisation and to recruit operatives,” Mr Gantz said.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the decision to seal the seven premises as “a crime and a brazen assault on Palestinian civil society institutions.” On Thursday, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh visited the offices of al-Haq, where workers had reopened the doors in defiance of Israeli actions.

Shawan Jabarin, director of al-Haq, which lost its appeal on Wednesday, said the group would “continue to defend the rights of the Palestinian people”. “We are not here at the behest of Gantz or any decision or declaration by ­Israeli authorities,” Mr Jabarin said on Thursday.

Khaled Quzmar, who directs the legal aid group Defence for Children International-Palestine, said its appeal against the designation was denied on Wednesday and the group’s employees ­arrived on Thursday morning to find the offices “ransacked”. “DCI has worked with 4500 children directly during the first half of 2022 only. Today we found their files thrown out on the stair­cases,” Mr Quzmar said.

In the months following the declaration in October, Israel circulated dossiers and meet European officials in an attempt to persuade them that the move was based on serious intelligence.

An internal EU review found no evidence to support allegations that al-Haq had funnelled EU funds to terrorist groups.

On Thursday, US State ­Department spokesman Ned Price said Washington was concerned by the raids and had communicated with Israel “including at senior levels”.

Michael Sfard, an Israeli human rights lawyer who is litigating al-Haq’s appeal, called the move an attempt to crack down on critics “at the barrel of a gun”.

“We can’t defend ourselves. They didn’t even detail the charges for us, let alone the evidence and what the accusations are based on,” Mr Sfard said.

The Wall Street Journal