EU 'concerned' by Israeli raids on Palestinian NGOs, CIA can't back regime's claim

The European Union’s top diplomat Josep Borrell says the bloc is “deeply concerned” by Israeli raids on the Palestinian NGOs, while the top American spy agency has been reportedly unable to find proof to label the NGOs as “terrorist organizations”.

“The EU is deeply concerned by the raids on six Palestinian civil society organizations that took place on the morning of August 18 and the measures that followed them, including arrests and interrogations of staff members of these organizations,” Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief, said on Monday.

The statement came in response to last week's Israeli military raid on six prominent Palestinian NGOs in the occupied West Bank.

Borrell called the move “part of a worrying reduction of space for civil society” in the occupied Palestinian territories, terming the actions "unacceptable."

A free and strong civil society is indispensable for promoting democratic values and for a two-state solution, he added.

The top EU diplomat said the bloc “stands firm with non-governmental organizations to uphold the right to freedom of expression and association” in Palestinian lands.

He further said that “no substantial information” has been provided by Israel to back up its allegations that the Palestinian civil society organizations serve as a front for terrorist activity.

Palestinian president blasts Israeli shutdown of seven NGOs in occupied West Bank as ‘totally rejected’

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Meanwhile, on Monday, a highly classified report by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) said it was unable to find any evidence to justify Israel’s decision to label six prominent Palestinian NGOs as “terrorist organizations”.

British daily newspaper The Guardian, citing sources with knowledge of the CIA probe, reported that a classified report did not substantiate Israeli assertions over the groups’ alleged links to terrorism.

The report added that numerous states, including allies of the Tel Aviv regime, have rejected the terror designation as unfounded and baseless.

The United States has not publicly criticized or questioned it, but neither has it placed the groups under a US terror designation, it said.

In light of the CIA’s assessment Omar Shakir, Israel/Palestine director of Human Rights Watch said that the US should very clearly call on Israel to reverse these designations and to allow these organizations to continue their vital work.

After the raids, the state department spokesperson, Ned Price, confirmed that the US government had analyzed Israel’s evidence for the terror charge.

European states ‘deeply concerned’ about Israel raid on Palestinian NGOs

European countries express alarm at the Israeli regime’s recent raid on Palestinian human rights organizations.

On August 18, 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.

The closures mean that it is illegal under Israeli military law for the employees to enter their offices.

Six of the organizations raided had been designated as “terrorist” organizations in October 2021 by the Israeli regime, which claimed they were affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

Mazen Rantisi, head of the board of directors at the UHWC, which runs several hospitals and dozens of clinics across the occupied West Bank, said the closures are part of a longstanding Israeli policy.

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