Israel closes six human rights NGOs citing alleged terrorist links

Aug. 18 (EUROPA PRESS) –

Israeli authorities raided the headquarters of six Palestinian human rights NGOs in the West Bank early this Thursday and ordered their closure for alleged links to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

The Israel Defense Forces have confiscated material while Israeli soldiers have dispersed several protesters who have thrown stones and Molotov cocktails at the agents, according to the newspaper ‘Haaretz’.

“This morning, the Israeli Occupation Forces raided Al Haq’s office in Ramallah, confiscated items and sealed off the main entrance with an iron plate, leaving behind a military order declaring the organization illegal,” he said. his official Twitter profile Al Haq, a human rights organization based in Ramallah.

The organizations also include Addameer, which oversees the treatment of Palestinian prisoners arrested in the West Bank by Israel, as well as the Union of Women’s Committees, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, the Foundation of Health Work Committees and the Center Bisan Research and Development.

Addamer has reported, like the other affected NGOs, that the military search warrant “was nailed to the door of his office.” “This is a staggering attack on our necessary Human Rights work,” he has said.

In a statement, the Presidency of the Palestinian Authority has condemned the closure of these civil and human rights institutions that operate in both Ramallah and Al Biré, as well as the seizure of their content, according to the WAFA news agency.

“The Presidency considered the Israeli decision a crime and a flagrant attack on the institutions of Palestinian civil society, as well as an attack on the entire international human rights system,” he specified, adding that these groups “fulfill their duty to expose the crimes of the occupation and expose them to the world.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz ratified on Wednesday the October 2021 decision to label some of the organizations as terrorist groups linked to the PFLP, according to The Times of Israel.

It must be remembered that, as a portfolio of the Israeli Government, the Ministry of Defense does not really have real powers to act against these NGOs, which operate mainly in the West Bank, although, after the military designation, the IDF Central Command does have the capacity to decide operations and can intervene against these groups.

Gantz announced in 2021 the decision of the Israeli Government to close at least six NGOs arguing that these groups operated as an arm of the PFLP, a regulation that provoked international condemnation and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, described it as an “unjustified attack”.

The PFLP, founded in 1967 and the second largest formation of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), behind President Mahmoud Abbas’s Al Fatá movement, is considered by Israel, the United States and the European Union as a terrorist group. .