‘Like an execution’: Palestinian NGOs detail Israeli crackdown

GENEVA — Israel’s decision to outlaw several Palestinian rights groups as terrorist organisations was “like an execution” designed to stop them from probing abuses, the head of one of the bodies told UN investigators on Monday.

Israel last year designated six Palestinian civil society groups as “terrorist” bodies and ordered them shuttered, sparking widespread international outrage.

It was the focus of a first series of public hearings hosted by a high-level team of investigators appointed last year by the United Nations Human Rights Council to probe the underlying causes in the decades-long Middle East conflict.

The first week of hearings, which have been harshly criticised by Israel, will also address the killing in May of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.

“In these proceedings, we are not drawing any conclusions or making any judgements”, lead investigator Navi Pillay, a former UN rights chief from South Africa, told the gathering via video link.

Shawan Jabarin, the head of legal-aid human rights group Al Haq, was the first to take the floor.

He charged that the “terrorist” designation in October had come after a years-long smear campaign against his organisation, including efforts to get backers to drop their support, as well as death threats against him and other colleagues.

The designation, which he said was justified with “a secret file”, was “like an execution”, aimed at halting his organisation from examining a vast array of rights abuses.

“We will not stop. Yes, they can they can detain us, they can arrest us, they can put us in prisons, they can kill us... but they can’t change our beliefs... We will continue fighting against the culture and the policy of impunity.”

Although not unprecedented, it is unusual for UN investigative teams to hold public hearings with witnesses.

But in this case, the investigators had determined it was important to be as transparent as possible as they conduct their work to mitigate accusations of bias.

Israel, which has refused to cooperate, was, meanwhile, not convinced.

“Over the upcoming five days, the UN Commission of Inquiry targeting Israel intends to simultaneously play judge, jury and executioner by holding so-called public hearings,” the Israeli mission in Geneva said in a statement.

“This Commission of Inquiry and the convening of these sham trials shame and undermine the Human Rights Council,” it said, insisting that “the Human Rights Council should not be used to convene kangaroo courts”.