[Defense for Children International - Palestine director Khaled
Quzmar tells Mondoweiss the message is clear: “We are under imminent
risk now.” ]
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ISRAEL RAIDS OFFICES OF 7 PALESTINIAN ORGANIZATIONS  
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Yumna Patel
August 18, 2022
Mondoweiss
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_ Defense for Children International - Palestine director Khaled
Quzmar tells Mondoweiss the message is clear: “We are under imminent
risk now.” _

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh meets with leaders of
the Palestinian NGOs raided by Israeli forces in the West Bank city of
Ramallah on August 18, 2022. , Shadi Hatem/APA Images

 

The Israeli army raided the offices of seven Palestinian civil society
organizations in the occupied West Bank overnight on Thursday,
confiscating and damaging items belonging to the organizations, and
sealing off their offices. 

Six of the seven organizations were designated
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as “terrorist institutions” by the Israeli government in October
2021, and were subsequently outlawed by the Israeli military commander
in the occupied West Bank.

The original six organizations are human rights group Al-Haq,
prisoners rights group Addameer, Defense for Children International
– Palestine, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), The
Bisan Center for Research and Development, and the Union of
Palestinian Women’s Committees. 

The seventh organization to be closed today along with the original
six is the Union of Health Work Committees (UHWC). (_Editor’s note:
not all of the organizations were aware of the closure of the Health
Committee, and so their original public statements about the closures
have referred to only six organizations_).

The groups released statements via their social media channels saying
that their offices were raided beginning at around 3:00 am on Thursday
morning, and that armed Israeli soldiers confiscated and destroyed
materials belonging to the organizations.

“At around 5:30 this morning I received a call from our neighbors
telling me that our offices were being raided,” Khaled Quzmar,
General Director of DCIP told _Mondoweiss_.

“I arrived to find more than a hundred soldiers surrounding the
office,” he said, adding that the soldiers were “shooting tear gas
everywhere,” and prevented anyone from approaching the office.

“When they left, I went into the building and found that our files
were thrown on the staircase, and many more files were thrown outside
of the building. Even the copying machine was thrown outside, I
don’t know why,” Quzmar said. 

He added that he also saw Israeli soldiers loading the office’s
equipment onto a truck, though he could not confirm exactly what was
taken, as the doors to the DCIP office were welded shut. 

Videos released by the Quds News Network and shared by the Union of
Palestinian Women’s Committees on Twitter also showed Israeli forces
loading equipment and materials belonging to the organization, onto a
large flatbed truck. 

In an statement [[link removed]] describing
the raid, Al Haq outlined the damage to their offices at length:

“At 3:23 am, Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) forcibly blasted through
the locked security door of Al-Haq’s offices, bursting the door from
its hinges and raiding the premises, setting off the alarms. Below the
premises of Al-Haq, the IOF bludgeoned and broke the front door of the
Episcopal Church, leaving long shards of exposed broken glass,
sponge-grenades, and several teargas canisters, rubber coated and live
bullets around the property. Armed military forces broke into Al-Haq,
systematically raiding each room and 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. The military rummaged through files, scattered and
displaced accounting folders to the ground, knocked over coffee cups
leaving spillages, and trashed offices, and trashed and bathrooms.”

In Al-Haq’s meeting room, raiding soldiers tore an Irish flag to the
ground, which had been symbolically placed in recognition of the
Occupied Territories Bill, prohibiting the import of settlement goods
and services. In addition, the IOF tore down large maps of 1948
Palestine, maps which depict an unfragmented Palestine, free from the
tyranny of settler colonialism and apartheid and the infliction of
international crimes. The IOF also removed from the wall at reception,
the framed certificate of the prestigious Geuzenpenning Prize for
Human Rights Defenders, awarded to Al-Haq in 2010, for Al-Haq’s
commitment and excellence in documenting and monitoring Israel’s
widespread and systematic violations of human rights against the
Palestinian people.

The doors of all seven organizations were welded shut or sealed with a
large iron plate – a common practice used by Israeli forces in the
occupied territory against offices, businesses, and even homes. 

The army left notices on the doors of the organizations declaring that
their offices were closed, and that the organizations were
“unlawful.” 

“These military orders were left taped to our doors after the
military raid on our offices. They declare Addameer forcibly closed in
the name of ‘security in the region, & to combat the infrastructure
of terrorism’,” Addameer said on Twitter.  “This is an
astonishing attack on our needed human rights work,” the group
added. 

ORGANIZATIONS VOW TO CONTINUE THEIR WORK

In a joint press conference on Thursday afternoon, the organizations
condemned the raids and the attack on their organizations, saying
Israel was “a racist, apartheid, and colonial state.”

Speaking to reporters, Jabarin said: “We will continue to defend the
rights of our people, despite any decision from [Benny]
Gantz,” referring to the Israeli Defense Minister who has led the
effort to criminalize the organizations. 

Jabarin said that the groups would not acquiesce to Israeli pressure,
and that they “will continue our work with the International
Criminal Court. These decisions mean nothing to us, and we will
continue on with our work in compliance with Palestinian law,” he
said. 

“They can arrest us, kill us, and beat us, but they will not deter
our resolve in achieving justice for our people, and defending the
rights of our people,” Jabarin said. 

Since the designation the Israeli government has failed to provide
public evidence supporting its claims, while classified documents have
revealed the dubious nature of the state’s accusations.
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In July nine EU states announced
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that they would continue to support and fund the groups in light of
“no substantial information” provided by the Israeli government to
back up its claims.

The UN Human Rights Office released a statement
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saying it was “alarmed at Israel’s arbitrary closure” of the
organizations, and called on Israel to immediately reverse the
decision and revoke the designation of the organizations as
“terrorist” and “unlawful”. 

“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,” the statement
said. 

“As such, the closures appear totally arbitrary. 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.”

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh met with the directors of
the organizations on Thursday and reaffirmed the Palestinian
Authority’s support for their work. 

Speaking inside the offices of Al-Haq in Ramallah, Shtayyeh said:
“Despite the occupation’s closure of their doors, the six [sic]
institutions will continue to work, because they are all registered
with the State of Palestine, and they are legitimate legal
institutions that operate within the framework of the law.”

Shtayyeh went on to say that Israel was attacking the institutions,
particularly Al-Haq, for the role they have played in providing
evidence to the ICC in its investigation of Israeli crimes and human
rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territory. 

He also criticized the lack of response from the international
community to Israel’s criminalization of the organizations, saying
“we must not surrender to this occupation and its procedures.”

DCIP’s Khaled Quzmar urged the EU to take “decisive action”
against Israel for its attacks on the groups. 

“These raids were a message [from Israel] to the EU that ‘you
decided to support these groups, but we are doing what we want’.
It’s time for the EU to take complete action to show Israel that
this will escalate into a conflict between Israel and the EU if Israel
continues with these policies against us,” he said. 

A security camera image of Israeli forces entering Defense for
Children International – Palestine offices on the morning of August
18, 2022. (Photo: Twitter/Defense for Children International –
Palestine)

‘WE ARE UNDER IMMINENT RISK NOW’

The raids on Thursday came just a few hours after Israeli Defense
Minister Benny Gantz announced on Wednesday that the terror
designation of three of the organizations had passed into law, while
the remaining three of the original six who had challenged their
terror designations in the courts had their appeals rejected. 

Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, which
represents the six original organizations, said in a statement:
“After 10 European states rejected Israel’s declarations of the
groups as ‘terrorist organizations,’ pronounced in the absence of
any evidence, 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,” Adalah said, highlighting the
fact that the groups’ appeals were rejected without any opportunity
to defend themselves against the alleged “secret evidence” against
them held by the Israeli government. 

“This attack on Palestinian civil society is an attack on the entire
Palestinian people and their right to self-determination. Standing
aside or staying silent constitutes active cooperation with the
persecution and oppression of human rights defenders,” Adalah
said. 

Following the raids on Thursday, the organizations expressed concerns
that because their organizations are now deemed unlawful by the
military commander, their staff could be under imminent threat of
arrest and military prosecution if they continue their work –
something the groups have been warning could happen for months. 
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Quzmar told _Mondoweiss_ that he, along with the directors of all the
organizations, received calls from Israeli intelligence officials on
Thursday morning following the closure of their offices. The director
of the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees was the only one to
answer the call, Quzmar said. 

“She was called in for a ‘meeting’ with the intelligence
officers. When she went they warned her not to go back into the office
or she’ll be arrested,” he said. 

“The message was clear: the military commander’s decision is
final, and we are considered illegal. Going back to work and
re-opening our offices will be a violation of an Israeli military
order, and we will be subject to military prosecution.”

Quzmar added that in Israeli military court, which boasts a 99%
conviction rate against Palestinians, the punishment for violating
such military orders could carry up to five years in prison, perhaps
even more. 

“We are under imminent risk now,” he said. 

THIS MOVEMENT NEEDS A NEWSROOM THAT CAN COVER ALL OF PALESTINE AND THE
GLOBAL PALESTINIAN FREEDOM MOVEMENT.

The Israeli government and its economic, cultural, and political
backers here in the U.S. have made a decades-long investment in
silencing and delegitimizing Palestinian voices.

We’re building a powerful challenge to those mainstream norms, and
proving that listening to Palestinians is essential for moving the
needle.

Become a donor today and support our critical work.

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