OPT: Prominent Palestinian human rights organisations facing US sanctions is an assault on the right to defend human rights
Front Line Defenders is gravely concerned about US government sanctions imposed on three leading Palestinian human rights organisations - Al-Haq, Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR). The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control issued sanctions against the organisations on 4 September 2025 under Executive Order 14203 for “directly engag[ing] in efforts by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute Israeli nationals, without Israel’s consent”.
Al-Haq, Al-Mezan and the PCHR are prominent Palestinian human rights organisations that have been working for decades to defend the human rights of, and seek accountability for human rights and international humanitarian law violations against the Palestinian people. Despite immense risks and challenges, the human rights organisations have continued their vital human rights work documenting atrocity crimes. Al-Haq has been previously targeted for its human rights work by the Israeli authorities, who in 2022, raided and shut down the office of Al-Haq and six other civil society organisations under baseless allegations of “terrorism”. Since October 2023, Israeli forces have systematically targeted Palestinian human rights organisations in Gaza, destroying the offices of Al-Mezan and PCHR and killing three PCHR staff members in separate attacks. The documentation gathered by these organisations has provided evidence of international crimes committed by Israeli forces and authorities in the Occuppied Palestinian Territory (OPT) which has informed cases against Israeli officials before the ICC.
The targeting and sanctioning of these three Palestinian human rights organisations are not isolated incidents; they represent a pattern of U.S. complicity in Israel’s campaign to restrict the ability of Palestinian human rights defenders do to their work, document violations, and seek accountability, suppressing the Palestinian human rights movement as a whole.
The sanctions on the human rights organisations are imposed in the context of earlier US sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, as well as against ICC senior officials and judges. These measures reflect a deliberate strategy by the US to shield Israel from accountability and to undermine international mechanisms that seek justice and accountability for atrocity crimes, including genocide, committed against the Palestinian people. These sanctions are not only unjust, but harmful to the Palestinian people who have been enduring decades of oppression and injustice. They also undermine the global solidarity movement with the Palestinian people and send a threatening message to all human rights defenders who seek justice and accountability.
Front Line Defenders condemns these US sanctions as they represent a troubling pattern of silencing Palestinian human rights defenders that call for justice and accountability in both Gaza and the West Bank. The sanctioned Palestinian human rights organisations are being directly targeted because of their legitimate human rights work exposing and seeking accountability for Israel’s egregious human rights violations, including in the context of the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Front Line Defenders calls on US authorities to immediately lift the sanctions imposed on Al-Haq, Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights and PCHR and ensure that human rights defenders can carry our their legitimate human rights work without reprisals. Front Line Defenders also calls on EU Member States to invoke the Blocking Statute to shield and protect Palestinian human rights organisations from unlawful US sanctions. Finally, the organisation calls on all countries that are signatories of the Rome Statute – which established the ICC – to condemn the US sanctions as dangerous to human rights defenders and harmful to the pursuit of justice and accountability for the gravest of crimes under international law.
