The United Nations Human Rights Office today expressed alarm at Israel’s arbitrary closure of seven Palestinian human rights and humanitarian organizations and called on Israel to immediately reverse these decisions, reiterating the High Commissioner’s call to revoke the designations of the organizations as “terrorist” and “unlawful.”
At dawn today, Israeli Forces broke into, searched and sealed the offices of seven Palestinian human rights and humanitarian organizations in Ramallah. Their property was confiscated and destroyed. Israeli forces left copies of military orders to close the offices of the organizations.
“The closure orders are a step to enforce Israel’s previous declarations of these organizations as “unlawful” and as “terror organizations” in 2021,” said the Human Rights Office in a statement. “Despite offers to do so, Israeli authorities have not presented to the United Nations any credible evidence to justify these declarations. Several Member States have also stated that the evidence shared with them does not justify the designations. As such, the closures appear totally arbitrary.”
The UN office said the shutting down of the organizations represents the latest in a series of attacks that are further drastically shrinking space for human rights and humanitarian work in the occupied Palestinian territory, affecting all institutions working on human rights, including the UN Human Rights Office. “Human rights defenders must be immediately protected from these unjustified attacks,” it said.
The organizations affected are Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association; Al Haq; Bisan Center for Research and Development; Defense for Children International – Palestine; Health Work Committees (HWC); Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC); the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees (UPWC).
Source: Palestine News And Information Agency