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TEL AVIV – Israel on Thursday shut down the offices of five leading Palestinian rights organizations in an early-morning raid in Ramallah and tightened its restrictions on civil society nearly a year after labeling the organizations terrorist groups in a move that drew international criticism.
Israel says the organizations have ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, an armed group that has carried out deadly attacks on Israel. Human rights groups have denied the allegation, and the United Nations has criticized the move.
The groups accuse Israel of targeting them for their political activism against Israeli rule and their work documenting alleged abuses in the occupied territories.
Israel wants to ban six Palestinian human rights groups it accuses of terrorism, sparking international outrage
State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters on Thursday that the United States was “concerned” about the closures and had “sent out the message that there has to be a very high bar for cracking down on civil society organizations.”
Israel, he said, has “informed us that it has reached that high bar” but has not yet provided requested information based on its actions. Information provided by Israel last October when it labeled the organizations terrorist did not result in similar designations by the United States, Price said, adding, “We haven’t seen anything in the last few months that would have caused us to test our To change approach and position on these particular organizations.”
The US Office of Palestinian Affairs in Jerusalem declined to comment.
The escalation is the latest blow to Palestinians, who say they have less and less room for political expression and dissent at a time when there is little international effort to end the conflict and Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.
Last year’s naming prompted many European supporters to stop funding the groups. However, the European Union said Israel had not provided sufficient evidence of links to the PFLP. In July, nine EU countries said they would continue to work with the organizations.
in one Refuting the Israeli Shutdown Diplomatic missions from 17 countries, including Britain and France, met with al-Haq officials at their office on Thursday evening.
“These allegations are not new and Israel couldn’t convince even its friends,” Shawan Jabarin, the director of al-Haq, an internationally respected human rights group that was among the targets, told the Associated Press on Thursday.
Other organizations raided included Defense for Children International-Palestine, the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees, the Bisan Center for Research and Development and Addameer, which advocates for Palestinian prisoners, according to a statement by the Israeli Defense Ministry.
In April, the United Nations called on the international community to support the six organizations. “Israel’s worrying designation of these organizations as ‘terrorist organizations’ has not been accompanied by any concrete and credible public evidence,” said the statement, which is attributed to human rights experts sponsored by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Israel last year labeled the Union of Agricultural Work Committees as terrorist connections.
Al Haq said Israeli forces kicked the locked door off its hinges and sounded the alarm. It was said that soldiers searched every room, looked through files and distributed them in the office. The group added that the property around the church, below the office, was littered with broken glass and other signs of the robbery.
Soldiers “then closed the main entrance with an iron plate and left a military order declaring the organization unlawful,” the group said.
Israeli forces said they “seized property” during the raids.
According to Defense for Children International-Palestine, footage from surveillance cameras showed soldiers stealing items such as computers and customer files. Addameer said his office door was forced open and materials were stolen.
Israel announced alleged terrorist links between the groups in October. Secretary of Defense Benny Gantz ratified the statement on Wednesday.
“All the organizations in question are operating covertly and on behalf of the PFLP in Judea and Samaria and abroad,” the defense ministry said in a statement, using Israel’s name for the West Bank.
Adalah, a Haifa-based Palestinian rights center, said the raids came shortly after the Israeli military rejected objections it had filed on behalf of the six organizations.
“These organizations have not and will not be given an opportunity to defend themselves against classified evidence allegedly held by the Israeli security forces,” the group said in a statement. “This attack on Palestinian civil society is an attack on the entire Palestinian people and their right to self-determination.”
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Some of these organizations also focus on human rights abuses by the Palestinian Authority, which rules parts of the West Bank and frequently arrests activists and critics. The Palestinian leadership, which last faced an election more than 15 years ago, is largely unpopular in the West Bank — partly because of its security coordination with Israel, which includes operations like Thursday’s raids.
At the same time, Israel is conducting military action against armed groups in the occupied West Bank. This led in part to a brief dogfight between Israel and a militant group in the Gaza Strip that month. The wave of raids in the West Bank began this spring amid Palestinian attacks that have killed 19 people in Israel.
But human rights groups – among those targeted Thursday – have accused Israel of being overly aggressive with impunity against Palestinians in the West Bank. Israeli forces have killed dozens since spring; Most recently, they killed a Palestinian in the West Bank city of Nablus on Thursday. Israel said he shot at soldiers during clashes. The Palestinians denied this claim.
Karen DeYoung in Washington contributed to this report.