UN warns Palestinian children ‘defenceless’ amid Israeli crackdown on NGOs
Palestinian children are “increasingly unprotected”, as Israel forces human rights organisations to cease or curtail work across the occupied Palestinian territories, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child warned on Monday.
The committee condemned Israel’s designation of civil society groups as “terrorists”. Labelling NGOs as terrorist entities gives Israel legal cover to obstruct humanitarian work, including military raids, travel bans, personal financial sanctions, threats of arrest, destruction of records and, in some cases, “threats of secondary sanctions against partners”.
The committee is made up of a body of 18 independent experts that work within the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN OHCHR).
The warning doesn’t name any of the organisations they are alluding to, but in 2021 Israel outlawed six major Palestinian NGOs, including Adameer, Al-Haq, Bisan Center for Research and Development, Defense for Children International – Palestine, Union of Agricultural Work Committees and the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees.
In January of this year, more than 50 international NGOs operating in occupied Palestine warned that recent registration measures imposed by Israel threatened to halt operations at a time of acute humanitarian need in Gaza.
On 30 December, 37 NGOs received an official notification that their registrations would expire the next day, triggering a two-month period after which they would be required to cease operations in Gaza, as well as the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs announced the ban on Tuesday, saying that organisations that had failed to meet their “security and transparency requirements” would have their licences suspended.
The ministry said the ban would also apply to those who “refused to submit a list of their Palestinian employees in order to rule out any links to terrorism”.
“Recent efforts to assess the impact of deregistering INGOs through selective metrics do not capture how humanitarian assistance is delivered in practice,” the 53 NGOs jointly wrote at the time.
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Israeli measures have made it nearly impossible for these groups to ensure the safety of children and families seeking critical assistance, leaving “children defenceless”, according to UN OHCHR.
“For more than three decades, these organisations have played a vital role in defending Palestinian children, including in the Israeli military courts, and in documenting grave violations against Palestinian children at the hands of Israeli forces,” the Committee said.
“Without them, Palestinian children will be even less protected, and violations of their rights risk continuing with impunity,” it continued.
The UN OHCHR statement demanded Israel “lift all restrictions and obstacles facing child rights defenders” in the occupied Palestinian territories, and that the international community use “all available means” to hold Israeli authorities accountable for attacks and prioritise the rights of Palestinian children.
“Despite grave risks and limited resources, child rights defenders have continued to stand with Palestinian children and families in extraordinarily dangerous conditions,” the committee said. “They must be protected, not punished.”
Israel has waged a severe crackdown on humanitarian work throughout the occupied Palestinian territories since the ceasefire came into effect in Gaza on 10 October, including a move to ban Doctors Without Borders (MSF) after the organisation refused to provide a list of its Palestinian staff.
In response to the Israeli government’s targeting of the NGO, 17 international aid agencies petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court in February to block the move.
While a court injunction currently permits their temporary continuance, the Israeli government is attempting to halt their operations entirely.
