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Civil Society and the Question of Palestine - NGO Action News - 27 January 2022

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Middle East

  • On 24 January, Adalah published an article informing that the Israeli Ministerial Committee for Legislation approved new versions of the Temporary Order on Citizenship and Entry into Israel which has been renewed 21 times over the last 18 years. According to Adalah, this law bans, among others measures, the unification of Palestinian families in Israel, resulting in the impossibility for Palestinians with Israeli citizenship married to Palestinians from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to live together in Israel.

  • On 23 January, Gisha informed that dozens of Palestinian Christians living in Gaza and represented by Gisha finally received “holiday permits” to visit the holy sites and family outside of the Strip despite initially being denied by Israel. The successful outcome followed Gisha filing seven petitions in recent weeks against Israel’s Ministry of Defense and military authorities on behalf of Palestinian Christians living in Gaza.

  • On 21 January, 7amleh published an article calling for the Israeli spyware industry to be stopped immediately following recent reports of the use the Pegasus spyware program developed by the Israeli company NSO Group, by the Israeli police. 7amleh stressed that Israel has upheld a policy of censorship and surveillance against Palestinians over the years, targeting their privacy, including their personal data, and even suppressed their freedom of expression based on discriminatory legislation and using programs such as “Pegasus.” 7amleh argued that the Israeli company has not only developed Pegasus through testing on Palestinians, but has approached spying technologies as a lucrative business to expand abroad, undermining digital rights globally and called on UN experts to take urgent action to denounce these violations of human rights, including in the digital realm.

  • On 21 January, al-Haq issued a statement criticizing the decision by the European Commission to suspend its funding to the organization, despite failing to clarify and substantiate the factual and legal grounds of its suspension. Al-Haq informed that this decision has been taken in May 2021, following an investigation on potential breach of obligations or irregularities based on a report by the Israeli government that accuses the misuse of European donors’ funds by Palestinian civil society organizations to fund terroristic activities, adding that members of a Parliamentary Group submitted questions in the European Parliament in December 2021 about the funding suspension.

  • On 19 January, al-Haq, Addameer and Habitat International Coalition informed that they sent a joint submission on apartheid to the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), arguing that Israel has been entrenching and maintaining a discriminatory regime pertaining to apartheid over the Palestinian people, through its laws, policies and practices in the OPT since 1967.

North America

  • On 27 January, American for Peace Now (APN) will organize a webinar with Barak Ravid, an Israeli journalist, to discuss his new book, Trump’s Peace. According to APN, Ravid’s latest book presents the previous U.S. Administration’s effort to push the so-called “Deal of the Century” to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and considers the dynamics in Washington, Jerusalem and the broader Middle East that blocked the Israeli annexation plan of the West Bank but allowed for the normalization agreements.

  • On 26 January, the Jerusalem Fund organized a webinar entitled “Environmental Prejudice in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”. Several representatives of Premiere Urgence Internationale participated in this discussion, including Anthony Dutemple, Head of Mission for in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Abbud Al-Shareef, West Bank Field Coordinator, and Hazem AlMadhoun, projects manager.

  • On 21 January, Americans for Peace Now (APN) issued a statement urging the U.S. Administration to demand determined Israeli action to confront West Bank settler violence following a new violent attack by settlers against a group of Israeli peace activists who were helping Palestinian villagers plant olive trees. APN further stated that the U.S. Administration must clarify its opposition to any Israeli policy or practice of displacing Palestinians in Area C or systematically denying them growth.

  • On 21 January, Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP) published the podcast “Another Week in the Life of the “Status Quo” in Palestine” as part of the series Occupied Thoughts. In this episode, FMEP discusses with Amjad Iraqi, an editor and writer at +972 Magazine, recent developments and the status quo that defines Israeli policies and rule over Palestinians.

  • On 19 January, J Street issued a statement expressing deep concerns at the forced eviction of a Palestinian family and the demolition of their home in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah on the previous day. J Street urged the U.S. Administration to take public action to promote peace and to stop the slide toward one state and permanent occupation. It also, called on the administration to investigate whether any U.S.-supplied defense equipment was used to help carry out this eviction and demolition in violation of U.S. law. On 20 January, the Churches for Middle East Peace also published a statement as well to oppose this latest demolition and urged the U.S. Administration to intervene to end the forced displacement of Palestinians from Sheikh Jarrah.

United Nations

  • On 24 January, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) announced the renewal of a four-year agreement with UNICEF to extend support to Palestine refugee children, adolescents, and women in its fields of operations. UNICEF and UNRWA will primarily cooperate in the fields of child and social protection, education, health, advocacy and emergency preparedness. This cooperation is meant to enhance humanitarian coordination including in time of crisis, increasing capacity to analyse risks and increase preparedness to mitigate crises.

  • On 20 January, the UNRWA West Bank field office issued a statement condemning the demolition of the home and eviction of a Palestinian family in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem. UNRWA recalled that this case is not unique as many Palestine refugee families in different parts of Sheikh Jarrah alone (over 200 persons, many of whom are children) currently face an imminent threat of eviction by Israeli authorities.

This newsletter informs about recent and upcoming activities of Civil Society Organizations affiliated with the United Nations Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. The Committee and the Division for Palestinian Rights of the UN Secretariat provide the information “as is” without warranty of any kind, and do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, or reliability of the information contained in the websites linked in the newsletter.