The Ramallah-based human rights group, Al-Haq, strongly rejected on Saturday the decision by Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz to designate Al-Haq and five fellow Palestinian civil society organizations as “terror organizations.”
Al-Haq called for international solidarity and concrete measures to ensure its immediate rescission.
“The baseless allegations represent an alarming and unjust escalation of attacks against the Palestinian people in their struggle for freedom, justice and the right to self-determination,” Al-Haq said in a press release.
Including @Addameer and @alhaq_org : #Israel Outlaws Six Major #Palestinian Human Rights Organizations https://t.co/7feo9yl6GN via @PalestineChron pic.twitter.com/786Jd9fZ0f
— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) October 22, 2021
“Israel’s widespread and systematic smearing of Palestinian human rights NGOs and human rights defenders aims to delegitimize, oppress, silence and drain their work and resources,” Al-Haq continued.
“Further, the unlawful application of Israel’s domestic law to the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT) serves to entrench the maintenance of its settler-colonial and apartheid regime of institutionalized racial discrimination and domination over the Palestinian people as a whole”
“For decades, Al-Haq has struggled to end Israel’s illegal settler-colonial policies and practices which, since 1948, have denied the Palestinian people from exercising their inalienable right to self-determination,” the Palestinian rights group added.
“Al-Haq is one of the leading Palestinian organizations calling for accountability and an end to Israel’s impunity for war crimes and crimes against humanity”.”
Palestinian Human Rights NGOs will not be Silenced, and Call on the International Community to take Concrete Actions to Rescind Barbarous Israeli Designations https://t.co/eGlT0iGnV0
— Al-Haq الحق (@alhaq_org) October 23, 2021
On Friday, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz declared six Palestinian human rights groups to be terrorist organizations, claiming they are “secretly linked” to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) – a leftist resistance group that Israel considers a ‘terrorist organization’.
The rights groups Humans Rights Watch and Amnesty International released statements calling the Israeli decision a brazen attack on human rights.
(The Palestine Chronicle, WAFA, Social Media)
