Investigators commissioned by the UN’s top human rights body on Thursday accused Israel of “delegitimizing and silencing civil society” by outlawing Palestinian human rights groups and labeling their members as “terrorists.”
The findings came in the annual report by the Human Rights Council’s “Commission of Inquiry.” The commission, led by a three-member team of human rights experts, was established in 2021 following an 11-day war between Israel and the Hamas militant group in Gaza. Israel accuses the rights council, and the commission, of being unfairly biased.
In 2020 and 2021, Israel designated seven Palestinian rights groups as terrorist groups, effectively outlawing them. It later raided and shut some of their offices.
Thursday’s report said the Israeli crackdown on the groups was “unjustified and violated fundamental human rights, including the rights to freedom of association, expression, opinion, peaceful assembly, privacy and the right to a fair trial.”
In the report, the commission also criticized the rival Palestinian governments in the West Bank and Gaza, accusing them of targeting human rights activists “with the aim of silencing dissenting opinions.”
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