Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz has signed on Friday an order declaring six civil society organizations in the West Bank as terrorist organizations. A statement by the Defense Ministry said that the organizations operate in a network run by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror group.
Some of these groups operate as human rights organizations: Addameer offers legal support to prisoners and collects data on arrests and administrative detentions, and actively works to end torture and violations of prisoners’ rights. Al-Haq documents the violations of Palestinians’ rights in the West Bank, monitors the killings of children and the wellbeing of arrested children in Israel.
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The NGOs also include a women’s rights organization and an agricultural labor association.
According to the statement, these groups “have received large sums of money from European countries and international organizations while using fraud and deception methods.” Moreover, the money was used by the PFLP to promote terrorism, recruit members and pay salaries to security prisoners and their families as well as terrorists.
“The groups are controlled by the senior leadership of the PFLP and employ many members of the group in jobs in both management and on the ground – including activists who were involved in terrorism.”
The six groups are Addameer, Al-Haq, Bisan Center, Defense for Children International Palestine, the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, and the Union of Agricultural Work Committees.
A joint statement by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch called the decision “appalling and unjust.” This move constitutes “an attack by the Israeli government on the international human rights movement.”
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“This decision is an alarming escalation that threatens to shut down the work of Palestine’s most prominent civil society organizations,” the joint statement read.
Israeli human’s right organization B’Tselem said that “Israel’s ‘change’ government’s classification of Palestinian human rights organizations as terror organizations is not merely declarative.”
“It is a characteristic act of totalitarian regimes, with the clear purpose of shutting down these organizations,” B’Tselem added.
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