Israel Closes Offices of Palestinian NGOs Designated as Terror Groups

The Associated Press
The Associated Press
Deborah Brand

Israeli troops were attacked with rocks and Molotov cocktails overnight Wednesday as they shuttered the offices of seven Palestinian rights groups deemed terrorist organizations by Israel.

Israel’s Defense Ministry last October announced that half a dozen Palestinian civil society groups were being designated as terror organizations linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which is itself designated as a terror group by both the E.U. and U.S.

The PLFP is behind decades of terror attacks against Israelis. The ministry claimed that the organizations in question “operate under cover for the PFLP,” and work “under the guise of performing humanitarian activities to further the goals of the PFLP terror organization.”

The PFLP has siphoned millions of euros from advocacy groups to its own coffers.

Israel has accused the groups, Addameer, al-Haq, Defense for Children Palestine, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, Bisan Center for Research and Development, and the Union of Palestinian Women Committees, of channeling aid funds to terrorists. Among the evidence provided was footage of leading figures from four of the organizations at a PLFP event honoring senior PFLP member Rabah Muhanna, who helped found Addameer, UHWC and UAWC.

The groups charged Israel with trying to silence criticism of its alleged human rights abuses.

The IDF said Thursday morning that it had seized “property belonging to the terror organizations.”

“During the counterterrorism activity, rocks and Molotov cocktails were hurled toward the soldiers, who responded with riot dispersal means,” the IDF added.

Activists hang a banner outside the Palestinian Al-Haq Foundation in the West Bank city of Ramallah after Israel raided and closed an entrance to their offices, on August 18, 2022. Israel designated six leading Palestinian civil society groups as outlawed terrorist organisations in October 2021. (ABBAS MOMANI/AFP via Getty Images)

According to Al-Haq and DCI-P, “client files” were confiscated and a notice left on the door declaring the “rights” groups unlawful.

“They came, blew up the door, got inside, and messed with the files,” Shawan Jabarin, director of al-Haq, told the Associated Press.

Last month, nine E.U. member states rejected Israel’s designation of the Palestinian organizations as terror groups, and said they would continue funding and working with them.

“No substantial information was received from Israel that would justify reviewing our policy toward the six Palestinian NGOs on the basis of the Israeli decision to designate these NGOs as ‘terrorist organizations,’” a joint statement from the foreign ministries of Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden said at the time.

NGO Monitor, which monitors anti-Israel nonprofits, slammed the E.U. for not even bothering to “to engage with the evidence.”

“Even without any classified intelligence, open source information published by NGO Monitor clearly shows the links between the PFLP and the European funded NGOs,” said Gerald Steinberg, the monitor’s founder.

The PA said the move to shutter the offices was a “dangerous escalation” and “an attempt to silence the voice of truth and justice.”

Israel’s Defense Ministry said: “The organizations operate to strengthen the organization and to recruit operatives. They also assist in raising funds for the terror organization via a variety of methods that include forgery and fraud.”

“The five organizations are controlled by the PFLP, employ PFLP operatives in management and field positions, and operate to conceal their affiliation to the terror organization, out of fear of the security agencies in Israel and in the countries in which they raise funds.”

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