Israel-Palestine head of HRW resigns over blocked report on Palestinians right of return

The Israel-Palestine director of Human Rights Watch (HRW) has resigned in protest, saying the organization’s new Executive Director prevented the publication of a report exposing Israel for committing “crimes against humanity” by denying Palestinian refugees their right of return.

In separate resignations published on Tuesday, Omar Shakir, who led HRW’s Israel-Palestine team for nearly a decade, and assistant researcher Milena Ansari condemned the leadership’s decision as a break from standard approval procedures.

“I have lost my faith in the integrity of how we do our work and our commitment to principled reporting on the facts and application of the law … As such, I am no longer able to represent or work for Human Rights Watch,” Shakir wrote in his resignation letter.

The resignations have shaken one of the world’s most prominent human rights organizations.

The 33-page report, never published, documented the experiences of Palestinians displaced from Gaza, the occupied West Bank, and refugee communities in Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria.

It linked decades of denied return to clear violations of international law, including crimes that could be prosecuted.

HRW leadership claimed the report involved “complex and consequential issues” requiring further analysis before release.

In response, Shakir countered on the social media platform X, saying “the report was finalized after 7 months in review & signed off on by the MENA division, five different specialists, the Program Office & the Law & Policy Office.”

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Shakir said the refusal to publish showed a disturbing unwillingness to confront Israel’s ongoing crimes.

While terms like “apartheid, genocide and ethnic cleansing” are increasingly recognized internationally, the right of return remains off-limits even within Human Rights Watch, he warned.

“The one topic … even at Human Rights Watch, for which there remains an unwillingness to apply the law and the facts in a principled way, is the plight of refugees and their right to return to the homes that they were forced to flee,” he said.

Shakir and Ansari said attempts to narrow the report’s scope to recent displacements in Gaza and the occupied West Bank weakened its legal case and silenced the voices of generations of refugees.

Over 200 HRW staff protested the report’s suppression, warning that the decision could seriously damage the organization’s credibility.

At least 7 million Palestinians live as refugees across Gaza, the occupied territories, and neighboring countries, driven from their homes during the Nakba.

The Nakba, or “catastrophe,” refers to the forced expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians by Zionist militias and the newly established Israeli regime in 1948. Thousands were killed during this genocidal campaign.

Since Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza on October 7, 2023, the number of displaced Palestinians has risen by at least 1.5 million, intensifying a decades-long injustice.

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