Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has strongly criticized the Israeli army’s recent shutdown of seven Palestinian civil society and human rights organizations in the occupied West Bank as “totally unacceptable and rejected”.
Faraan: Abbas made the remarks in a meeting with representatives of the disbanded NGOs in Ramallah on Saturday, Palestine’s official Wafa news agency reported.
The organizations will continue to expose Israeli occupation and crimes against Palestinian people, he stated. “We must all stand together and confront this Israeli policy, which persists on implementing unilateral measures in disregard of all agreements signed between the two sides and in violation of the international law,” the Palestinian president said. European countries express alarm at the Israeli regime’s recent raid on Palestinian human rights organizations. “We will not accept the continuation of such a policy. We will protect the rights of our people in light of the international inaction towards the ongoing Israeli crimes against Palestinian nation, their sanctities and their land,” he pointed out.
Abbas added that the Palestinian authority is reaching out to relevant international institutions “to stop Israeli provocations against Palestinian organizations that operate in accordance with international law and human rights. We thank the international condemnation of these [Israeli] attacks, but practical measures are required to stop aggressive Israeli practices.” On Thursday, the Israeli army stormed and ordered the closure of Palestinian NGOs in the West Bank cities of Ramallah and al-Bireh.
The organizations’ offices were ransacked and their equipment confiscated. Doors were welded shut, with an Israeli military order posted on them declaring the organizations “unlawful”. Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, al-Haq rights group, the Union of Palestinian Women Committees (UPWC), the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), the Bisan Center for Research and Development, the Palestine chapter of the Geneva-based Defense for Children International, and the Union of Health Work Committees (UHWC) are the NGOs shut down by Israel.
