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al mezan center for human rights
'Shameful Assault on Human Rights': Trump Sanctions Palestinian Orgs That Called for UN to Investigate Israeli War Crimes
The former executive director of Human Rights Watch said Trump's "answer to Israeli atrocities is to censor reporting on them rather than to stop them."
Sep 05, 2025
Human rights groups around the world are reacting with horror after the Trump administration sanctioned three leading Palestinian human rights monitors who sought to bring evidence of Israeli war crimes before the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The three groups—Al-Haq in the West Bank and the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) and Al Mezan Center for Human Rights—are considered among the leading human rights monitors in the region.
In an announcement on Thursday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the sanctions were imposed on these groups because they "directly engaged in efforts by the international criminal court to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute Israeli nationals, without Israel's consent."
In November 2023, the three groups petitioned the ICC to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top Israeli officials—including President Isaac Herzog and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant—for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.
They cited Israel's widely documented use of indiscriminate airstrikes against densely populated civilian areas and its near-total blockade of humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip—acts that, over the next nearly two years, have made Gaza virtually uninhabitable and brought it to the point of mass starvation.
The ICC would eventually issue warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant in November 2024, which was met with threats of sanctions by the administration of then-President Joe Biden, who called the warrants "outrageous." Despite Netanyahu and his officials having visited multiple ICC member countries, which are obliged to carry out the court's warrants, no arrests have been made.
Since retaking office, US President Donald Trump has followed through on threats against the ICC, placing sanctions on the court as a body and threatening to sanction anyone who assisted in its prosecution or investigation into Israel or other US allies.
In August, as much of the world had begun to isolate Israel as it moved forward with an explicit ethnic cleansing campaign, the administration also sanctioned four of the ICC's judges, including the one who authorized the warrants against Israel's leaders.
Now, just days after the world's leading group of genocide scholars voted overwhelmingly for a resolution stating that Israel's actions meet the legal definition for the crime, the Trump administration is attempting to cripple the groups that are documenting those actions.
Former BBC radio journalist Sangita Myska noted that "this type of action is normally reserved for terrorists and drug traffickers," adding that it will "severely damage the organizations' ability to advocate for Palestinians."
It is not the first time the Trump administration has sanctioned a Palestinian human rights group. In June, it sanctioned Adameer, a Ramallah-based group focused on the rights of prisoners in Israel's brutal detention system.
At the time, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said the sanctions "would make day-to-day operations harder and harder, including for their employees, assisted communities, and service suppliers. This will also negatively affect their engagement with their partner organizations, locally and internationally, including US-based groups."
Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, said that the administration was acting "as if the answer to Israeli atrocities is to censor reporting on them rather than to stop them."
In a joint statement issued Thursday, Al Haq, Al Mezan, and the PCHR described it as "a coward[ly], immoral, illegal, and undemocratic act."
"As the world moves to impose sanctions and arms embargoes on Israel," the groups said, "its ally, the US, is working to destroy Palestinian institutions working tirelessly for accountability for the victims of Israel's mass atrocity crimes."
(Video: Al Jazeera)
"They want to silence Palestinian voices," said PCHR's Basel Al-Sourani in an interview with Al Jazeera. "They want to silence anyone who stands up to Israeli crimes, anyone who tries to advocate for Palestinian rights, anyone who tries to bring perpetrators to justice."
Other human rights groups around the world have joined them in condemning the decision.
Erika Guevara-Rosas, a director at Amnesty International, described the sanctions against these groups as a "shameful assault on human rights and the global pursuit of justice."
"These organizations carry out vital and courageous work, meticulously documenting human rights violations under the most horrifying conditions," Guevara-Rosas continued. "They have steadfastly continued to do so in the face of war, genocide, and the oppressive reality of Israel's apartheid regime, as well as malicious attempts to discredit their findings and cripple their funding with spurious terrorism accusations. They are the voice of Palestinian victims, amplifying stories of human suffering and injustice that would otherwise remain unheard."
The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, which in July joined the growing international consensus that Israel is perpetrating a genocide, said it stands "in full solidarity with our colleagues and partners working for human rights between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea."
The group described the US sanctions as "yet another move aimed at erasing fundamental norms of protecting human beings designed to enable Israel to continue harming Palestinians without restraint."
Al-Sourani said that the sanctions were "not a surprise, given the US administration being a partner in Israel's genocide."
Trump has endorsed Israel's stated goal to permanently displace most Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, with reporting earlier this week detailing plans to replace the destroyed enclave with a sprawling real-estate development.
Some of the developers of the plan are Israelis involved in the administration of the US-Israeli-run Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), where over a thousand Palestinian aid seekers have been killed, often in deliberate massacres by Israeli troops, in recent months.
Despite the new dangers they will impose, Al-Sourani said, "these sanctions, they will not deter us."
"We will continue documenting the Israeli crimes that are happening on the ground," Al-Sourani said. "We will continue our engagement with the ICC. We will continue advocating for justice, for the rule of law, and for the protection of the ICC judges and the prosecutors."
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Group Documents Israel's Starvation of 2 Palestinian Children in Past Week
"Al Mezan reiterates its urgent call for an immediate cease-fire, which must be coupled with the immediate lifting of the siege and closure imposed on Gaza."
Jun 03, 2024
Warning: This article includes graphic descriptions and images of starvation.
The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights said Monday that two more children died of malnutrition last week at a hospital in the embattled Gaza Strip, where Israel stands accused in a World Court genocide case of blocking food and other lifesaving aid from reaching starving Palestinians.
Al Mezan said 5-month-old Fayez Attaya died on May 30 and 13-year-old Abdulqader Al-Serhi died on June 1 at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza. Both children died from malnutrition and lack of adequate healthcare due to the 241-day Israeli bombardment, invasion, and siege of Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel.
The Gaza-based rights group said that the two children "died as a result of a multifaceted pattern of genocidal acts perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinian population of Gaza."
"These acts include the total siege imposed on Gaza since October 9, 2023, the utilization of starvation as a genocidal weapon of war, the deliberate targeting and destruction of Gaza's healthcare system, and the recurrent forced displacement of millions of Palestinians," Al Mezan added.
According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, more than 30 people—mostly children—have died from malnutrition and dehydration during the war. Almost all of the victims are from northern Gaza, where United Nations World Food Program Executive Director Cindy McCain said last month that "full-blown famine" had taken hold and was spreading south.
"The escalating risks of starvation pose a grave and imminent threat to the lives of our population, particularly children, patients, the elderly, and individuals with disabilities," Al Mezan researcher Basem Abu Jray said in a statement Monday.
"Living conditions have plummeted to their lowest ebb, exacerbated by the destruction of vital life and economic sectors, which has resulted in a stark increase in poverty and unemployment," he added. "Moreover, the closure of the Rafah border crossing and the impediment of humanitarian aid and fuel entry have profoundly impacted the civilian population."
Attaya was born on December 6 and spent his short life in the Al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza before the Israeli invasion forcibly displaced his family, who moved to the Al-Mawasi area in western Khan Younis. He was healthy at birth, weighing 7.7 pounds. However he soon developed breathing difficulties, which his father says were exacerbated "by my inability to provide adequate food for my wife to breastfeed him properly." Attaya weighed just 3.3 pounds when he died.
Fayez’s father says: “Look at my son’s condition, it’s because of hospitals and war”
“He’s now with god”
Fayez Abu Ataya (7 month old baby) was announced dead as a result of malnutrition a result of the israeli siege on Gaza
Can you imagine what his father is feeling? pic.twitter.com/YlvFdeSMAE
— Suppressed News. (@SuppressedNws) May 30, 2024
Al-Serhi suffered from poor health since he was born in 2010. He was being regularly monitored at Al-Rantisi Children's Hospital in Gaza City until Israel's invasion forced its closure in November. The child's condition had been stable before the war but he lost access to lifesaving treatment and nutritious food.
According to his father:
I only had two bottles of the necessary medication for Abdulqader, but as time passed, the prescribed treatment ran out. I tried to buy it but couldn't find it anywhere. I also tried to look for it in Egypt, but the closure of the Rafah crossing prevented that. All of this coincided with shortages in food, meat, fruits, and vegetables. Abdulqader's health deteriorated significantly, especially given the tent conditions and the high temperatures, which were unsuitable for his health.
Palestinian and international agencies say that since October over 15,000 Palestinian minors have died in Gaza, which the United Nations Children's Fund calls the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Overall, Israel's assault on Gaza has left more than 130,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and around 2 million of Gaza's 2.3 million people forcibly displaced.
"Al Mezan reiterates its urgent call for an immediate cease-fire, which must be coupled with the immediate lifting of the siege and closure imposed on Gaza," the group said.
"Famine must be formally declared across the entirety of Gaza," Al Mezan continued. "Should Israel persist in controlling and keeping the Rafah crossing and the other crossings closed, and if patients in need of urgent medical care are not allowed to seek treatment outside Gaza, the deaths of Fayez and Abdulqader will serve as a grim prelude to many more casualties."
"Gaza's genocidal humanitarian catastrophe resulting from deliberately imposed Israeli policies will inevitably worsen, leading to additional preventable deaths," the group added. "Urgent and resolute action is imperative."
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Palestinian Groups Condemn Silence of UN's Top Official on Genocide
"The glaring absence of any action in response to the sustained mass atrocities endured by Palestinians in Gaza raises significant concerns about the special adviser's capability to execute her mandate."
Feb 07, 2024
More than a dozen Palestinian human rights groups on Wednesday demanded an investigation into the United Nations Office of Genocide Prevention and its special adviser, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, over their near-total silence as the Israeli military continues its large-scale assault on Gaza's starving population.
In a letter to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, Al-Haq, and other organizations wrote that the "absence of any action in response to the sustained mass atrocities endured by Palestinians in Gaza raises significant concerns about the special adviser's capability to execute her mandate with due effectiveness and impartiality."
The groups argued that the silence from Nderitu is "particularly glaring" now that the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the U.N.'s highest legal body, has ruled that South Africa's genocide case against Israel is plausible and ordered the Israeli military to do everything in its power to prevent genocide.
Other U.N. experts have vocally warned that Palestinians in Gaza are facing a possible genocide at the hands of the Israeli military. In November, eight U.N. special rapporteurs issued a joint statement declaring that "time is running out to prevent genocide and humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza."
"The U.N. cannot afford to stay silent in the face of the genocide currently taking place in Gaza and must avoid repeating the mistakes of the past."
Nderitu, a Kenyan diplomat, expressed alarm on October 15 over "the loss of civilian lives resulting from Israeli bombardments" in Gaza but has not described Israel's actions as possibly genocidal. A review of the U.N. Office on Genocide Prevention's website shows that Nderitu has not issued a public statement on Gaza in nearly four months, even as she has condemned the intensification of violence in Sudan and other countries.
Israeli forces have killed tens of thousands of Gazans since Nderitu's October 15 statement, and nearly the entire population of the enclave has been displaced in those intervening months.
"The gravity of the situation on the ground in Gaza and the urgency it commands intensify our concerns that the special adviser is in dereliction of her duties and responsibilities demanded by her mandate," the Palestinian groups wrote Wednesday. "This failure includes neglecting to raise awareness about Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza or, at the very least, to the alarming risk of genocide; failing to acknowledge the ICJ ruling that Israel is plausibly committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza along with the provisional measures ordered for Israel; and refusing to engage meaningfully, meet, or respond to requests from Palestinian human rights organizations."
The groups urged Guterres to launch an investigation into "the reasons behind the failure of both the special adviser and the Office on Genocide Prevention to fulfill their mandates" and to publicly disclose the findings.
"The failure of the international community, including Ms. Alice Wairimu Nderitu, to prevent Israel's genocide in Gaza has tangible consequences on the ground," the new letter reads. "This is evident in the tragic toll of 100,000 Palestinians who have been killed, injured, or are missing, constituting 4% of the total Gaza population. The ongoing mass atrocities in Gaza require an unequivocal response. The U.N. cannot afford to stay silent in the face of the genocide currently taking place in Gaza and must avoid repeating the mistakes of the past."
Nderitu has faced internal criticism at the U.N. over her lack of response to Israel's war on the Gaza Strip.
In late October, dozens of unnamed U.N. staffers signed an internal memo rebuking Nderitu for failing to sufficiently condemn Israel's indiscriminate bombing of Gaza and its yearslong blockade, which has denied food, water, and medicine to increasingly desperate Palestinians.
A petition calling for Nderitu's resignation, meanwhile, has garnered more than 21,000 signatures.
"With the official in charge of genocide prevention taking no action despite public pressure, statements by U.N. special rapporteurs, and thousands of civilians killed, including U.N. staff and their families, we demand Nderitu's immediate resignation and for her to be held accountable for her failure to act in response to mass atrocities in Gaza," states the petition, which was launched in December. "The world is watching, and history will remember the actions taken, or not taken, by the United Nations in response to a genocide unfolding in Gaza."
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