"PNGO & PHROC: ISRAEL’S SINISTER DESIGNATION OF 6 LEADING PALESTINIAN ORGANIZATIONS AS “TERROR ORGANIZATIONS” IS AN ATTEMPT TO SILENCE AND CONTROL PALESTINIANS", 22 October 2021

[...] The arbitrary designations target six of the most eminent Palestinian CSOs and human rights defenders engaged in critical human rights work in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), including the documentation and monitoring of human rights violations, accountability work to prosecute Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity, and legal and advocacy efforts to bring Israel’s occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid regime to an end. The designations represent an unprecedented and ominous attempt by the Israeli occupying authorities to silence and criminalize Palestinian CSOs that challenge Israel’s prolonged military occupation, entrenched settler-colonisation and apartheid of Palestine.

Notably, the use of purposely vague and baseless “anti-terrorism” legislation to criminalize the six organizations under Israeli domestic law follows years of sustained and systematic campaigns and attacks against Palestinian CSOs, to stymie their human rights documentation and cooperation with international and United Nations (UN) human rights mechanisms....

Noting the gravity of the current situation and imminent risks faced by Palestinian humanitarian actors and Palestinian human rights defenders, PNGO & PHROC urgently call on the international community, including third States, civil society organizations, human rights defenders, the United Nations, and the broader public, to:

1. Demand that Israel revoke its designation of “terrorist organization” against the six leading Palestinian CSOs;
2. Urge the Israeli Ministry of Defense and Justice, and other relevant interlocutors to cease the employment of illegal practices and policies of intimidation and harassment, including the arbitrary criminalization, harassment, and repression of Palestinian CSOs, which violate fundamental conventions under international law;
3. Issue a public statement of non-recognition of the designations as an internationally wrongful act of apartheid, comprising legislative measures calculated to breach the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association;
4. Condemn the designations as an  unlawful application of Israeli domestic law to the occupied Palesitnian territory; and
5. Call upon the international community, including donors, supporters, and human rights actors around the world to condemn the arbitrary designations and intimidation tactics, and to publicly reiterate their support of the Palestinian civil society organisations.