Transparency & Accountability

Israel's 2021 terror label on six NGOs still lacks public proof

Times of PalestineNEW1h ago

Published Thursday, September 10, 2026 · 14:00 Jerusalem time

Transparency & Accountability

Graphic: Times of Palestine

Original Reporting

By the Times of Palestine Newsdesk · 1 min read

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Israel's then-defense minister, Benny Gantz, designated six Palestinian civil society organizations as terrorist groups on 19 October 2021: Al-Haq, Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Defense for Children International-Palestine, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, Bisan Center for Research and Development, and the Union of Palestinian Women's Committees. The order alleged the groups funneled funds to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a designated militant faction.

The Israeli government has never published the evidence behind the designation. United Nations human rights experts said at the time they had seen no substantiation, and more than two hundred civil society organizations worldwide, along with several European governments, condemned the move as an attempt to shut down documentation of the occupation rather than a counterterrorism measure.

European donors that funded the groups reviewed the Israeli dossier and largely kept funding in place. The Netherlands, one of the donors Israel briefed directly, said its own review found no basis to end support for UAWC. Other European governments that received the same briefing reached similar conclusions, even as some paused individual grants pending review.

The designation had concrete consequences regardless of the unresolved evidence. Israeli forces raided the Ramallah offices of six organizations in August 2022, welding several doors shut and confiscating equipment and files. Al-Haq and Addameer said the raids, conducted at night, disrupted case files documenting settlement expansion and detention conditions that the two groups had built over decades.

Four years on, the organizations continue operating, still designated inside Israel and still short of the public evidentiary record Israeli officials promised. The gap between an accusation with real operational consequences and a case Israel has not shown the public, or apparently many of its own allies, remains the story's unresolved center.