05 September 2025
The Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy draws its steadfastness from our people and all the organizations determined to defend our fundamental rights and liberation. Yesterday, three of Palestine’s most prominent human rights organisations; Al Haq, Al Mezan, and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights were sanctioned by the United States Administration, primarily due to their work to bring justice to the Palestinians at the International Criminal Court (ICC). These organizations’ teams have born witness to the ongoing genocide and its atrocities in Gaza and the rest of Palestine. They have been displaced, bombed and targeted, yet they continue to document in order to bring our reality to the world and justice to our people.
Yesterday’s designations for sanctions come three months after the designation of another Palestinian human rights organization, Addameer in defense of Palestinian political prisoners, as a “terrorist organisation” and a month after the sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. It also comes on the backdrop of political persecution and arrests in the U.S. against Palestinians and their allies. This is not only a legal assault – it is a moral disgrace that seeks to criminalize those who defend life, dignity, and rights.
Such developments are not surprising. The subsequent U.S Administrations have chosen to be the enemy of the Palestinian people and of justice, deliberately sponsoring, supporting and covering up genocide, occupation, and settler colonialism. By choosing hegemony, bullying, the rule of force and the undermining of any form of fair multilateral order and international law, it is accelerating the annihilation of our people and land, while continuing to be complicit in the exploitation of people and resources across the world.
The attempt to directly prevent human rights organizations from operating is a desperate and futile attempt to silence and demobilize Palestinians who have, despite relentless attempts of erasure, continued to resist and defend their dignity against colonial brutality. These actions shall not deter our civil movement in Palestine and abroad from standing together united against states that at their core are in a constant mission to destroy, control, dominate and displace.
Countries around the world must step up and choose between remaining complicit or upholding their legal, moral and political obligations to support Palestinians fundamental right to self determination and resistance to oppression. Specifically, we must continue to emphasize the need to take immediate diplomatic and economic sanctions on Israel, including full arms and energy embargoes and excluding it from all multilateral institutions and forums. With regards to the sanctions against Palestinian organizations and their allies, the EU has a particular responsibility to immediately invoke and enforce the Blocking Statute to counter U.S. sanctions.
We shall continue to fight for justice until the full liberation of Palestine.