Attacks against human rights defenders and obliteration of civic space in Gaza unacceptable, says UN expert

GENEVA – Ten months into Israel’s war on Gaza, following the heinous 7 October Hamas attacks, Israeli Defence Forces continue to intentionally starve and kill civilians, while human rights defenders face enormous challenges conducting their peaceful work, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Mary Lawlor said today.

“This horrendous situation continues despite provisional measures issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) aimed at preventing acts of genocide in Gaza and the illegal occupation of Gaza,” Lawlor said.

In recent months the oldest human rights organisation in Gaza, the Palestinian Human Rights Centre (PCHR), has seen staff members killed and its offices damaged beyond repair in air strikes and ground attacks by the Israeli Defence Forces.

“There is literally no place left for human rights defenders and civil society actors to continue documenting the litany of human rights violations to which Israel is subjecting the people of the Gaza Strip,” the Special Rapporteur said.

Two women lawyers from the PCHR were killed in February 2024. Nour Abu al-Nour died along with her two-year-old daughter, her parents, and four siblings in an air raid on her house in Rafah on 20 February 2024. Two days later, Dana Yaghi and 37 family members were wiped out in an Israeli air raid on a house to which they had relocated for safety in Deir el-Balah, 14 km south of Gaza City.

“It is a terrible tragedy that justice for these two women human rights defenders, their family members and their children, seems so far away. Human rights defenders keep hope alive for justice through their work but are becoming victims themselves. This is why Israeli authorities seem so intent on targeting and silencing them,” she said.

The PCHR headquarters in Gaza City and branch offices in Jabalya, Khan Younis, and Rafah have all been severely damaged in air raids and ground attacks, forcing staff to relocate and rent office space and logistical support at skyrocketing prices, while some international funding has been suspended. They have also been subjected to a vitriolic online smear campaign by the Israeli group, NGO Monitor, which has falsely accused PCHR of being linked to terrorists.

“Human rights defenders have told me that they will continue their work despite this online defamation, which is targeted at drying up their international support and intimidating them,” Lawlor said.

“This organisation continues to bear witness, document and record gross human rights violations and war crimes. Many Palestinians have spoken to them on condition of anonymity. Such is their fear of Israeli repercussions if they are to be publicly identified.”

Recent media reports have highlighted Israeli surveillance of PCHR, and other Palestinian human rights organisations, including Al-Haq and Addameer in the Occupied West Bank, for much of the past decade, in relation to information they were submitting on Israeli human rights violations to the International Criminal Court.

“I repeat my call for human rights defenders to be recognised as essential in times of armed conflict, and to be protected. As independent observers, lawyers and researchers, they document and preserve evidence of violations of international humanitarian and human rights law and ensure the possibility of accountability and justice,” Lawlor said.

The physical integrity of Human Rights Defenders should be protected against attacks and harassment, unlawful killings should be promptly and independently investigated in accordance with international law, and measures adopted to protect them against future serious violations, she said.

The expert has previously raised these concerns with authorities in Israel and in the occupied Palestinian territory.