Israel raids Palestinian rights groups it previously labeled as terrorists
PBS NewsHourFEB 26 2022
During overnight raids on Thurs., in Ramallah, West Bank, Israeli forces closed the offices of seven Palestinian human rights organizations - six of which it had previously deemed terrorist organizations - confiscating items before welding doors shut.
The move has sparked international criticism, with the UN and the US urging Israel to disclose details of charges supporting the closures and to provide evidence of allegedly unlawful activities.
Israel first accused the NGOs of being associated with terrorism in Oct. 2021, after an earlier investigation by security agency Shin Bet alleged that they had raised and laundered money for the militant Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), as well as forged documents for them, recruited activists, and witnessed high-level meetings at their offices.
These attacks against Palestinian civil society come amid a broader campaign to vilify Palestinian institutions, especially human rights groups that have criticized and denounced Israel's crimes and abuses. Hopefully, this latest crackdown will backfire as the international community has rightly stood with the NGOs after Israel failed to prove its claims.
It requires a lot of naivety to believe that these NGOs represent "civil society" and aren't part of a soft-power strategy against Israel. These groups have verifiable connections with the Marxist-Leninist PFLP and yet are allowed to operate in and against Israel. Letting this go unpunished will only worsen the situation.