Israeli forces raided, ransacked, and shuttered the offices of several top Palestinian civil society groups in the West Bank in the early hours of Thursday morning, a move the organizations denounced as retaliation for their efforts to end the decades-long occupation and hold Israel accountable for its ongoing war crimes.
Al-Haq, Addameer, the Bisan Center for Research and Development, Defense for Children International-Palestine, the Union of Agricultural Workers Committees (UAWC), and the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees (UPWC) were among the groups whose West Bank offices were stormed by Israel, which has accused the organizations of harboring ties to “terrorists.”
The groups deny that allegation as a smear aimed at justifying Israeli forces’ suppression of legitimate human rights work in the occupied enclave, which Israel has subjected to years of bombing, military raids, and economic strangulation.
At some of the offices, the Israeli soldiers barred the entrances and left behind notices that the groups’ activities have been deemed illegal.
BREAKING 🚨 The Israeli occupation forces raided UAWC’s office early this morning 18th of August, as well as the offices of the other #6organizations. They destroyed office equipment, confiscated materials and left a closing order behind. pic.twitter.com/hVaHrRIaKS
— Union of Agricultural Work Committees (@UAWC1986) August 18, 2022
Al-Haq said Thursday that Israeli soldiers “forcibly blasted through the locked security door” of its offices in Ramallah, “bursting the door from its hinges and raiding the premises, setting off the alarms.”
The soldiers proceeded to “systematically” infiltrate “each room,” the group continued, “blasting the hinges off the locked doors of the finance department, the administrative office, the general director’s office, and the main server room, causing material damage.”
“In targeting the Palestinian civil society organizations, Israel is dismantling the very fabric of the Palestinian society and systematically removing the critically vital monitoring and oversight institutions necessary for a viable and functioning society based on the principles of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law,” the group added, imploring the international community to “immediately reverse the military order designating the six organizations as unlawful associations.”
Al-Haq also urged governments to “take concrete measures, such as trade restrictions and arms embargoes, to ensure that Israel is held internationally responsible for its ongoing systematic inhumane acts of apartheid, including the persecution of Palestinian human rights defenders.”
🚨🚨Breaking: This morning, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) raided Al-Haq’s office in Ramallah, confiscated items and shut down the main entrance with an iron plate leaving behind a military order declaring the organization unlawful 1/2 pic.twitter.com/Y8yqRdU4Db
— Al-Haq الحق (@alhaq_org) August 18, 2022
Middle East Eye reported that the raids came after Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz “announced on Wednesday that the terror designation of three of the groups had passed into law.”
“The other three, which had challenged their terror designations, had their appeals rejected,” the outlet noted. “Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, which represented the six groups with private attorneys, said no explanation was given to the groups.”
Adalah attorneys Dr. Hassan Jabareen, Adi Mansour, and Rabea Agbariah and private attorneys Michael Sfard and Jawad Boulos said in a statement that “Israel continues to persecute Palestinian human rights and civil society groups with the clear aim of silencing any criticism against it.”
“The effort is led by a defense minister, Benny Gantz, suspected of committing war crimes, in an attempt to terrorize those who will testify against him and his actions,” they added.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment. We are presently looking for 340 new monthly donors in the next 5 days.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy