Trump sanctions Palestinian human rights organization over alleged political connections

The Trump administration has imposed sanctions on a leading Palestinian human rights group and five other charities for alleged links to Palestinian political factions designated by Israel and the U.S. as “terrorist groups.”

Addameer, which provides legal services to Palestinian prisoners, was designated as a terrorist group by Israel in 2021, and the country’s government has been pressuring the United States to impose sanctions ever since. Israel has refused to provide any evidence linking the organization to militants.

The other sanctioned groups are Al Weam Charitable Society, Filistin Vakfi, El Baraka Association for Charitable and Humanitarian Work, Israa Charitable Foundation Netherlands and Associazione Benefica La Cupola d’Oro.

“Today’s action underscores the importance of safeguarding the charitable sector from abuse by terrorists like Hamas and the PFLP, who continue to leverage sham charities as fronts for funding their terrorist and military operations,” said Deputy Secretary Michael Faulkender in a statement. “Treasury will continue to use all available tools to prevent Hamas, the PFLP, and other terrorist actors from exploiting the humanitarian situation in Gaza to fund their violent activities at the expense of their own people.”

In a 2022 interview,  Addameer Director Sahar Francis told Mondoweiss that attacks on the group didn’t start with Israel’s designation.

“The campaign against us has been ongoing for many years: harassment, smear campaigns, defamation, the distribution of false information about us by different groups like NGO monitor, UK Lawyers for Israel, and other right wing Israeli groups,” explained Francis.

“The policy behind all these attacks is actually to terrify the donors, and to terrify those who were investing in civil society in Palestine,” she continued.

In August 2022, the Israeli army raided the offices of seven Palestinian civil society organizations in the occupied West Bank, including Addameer. The soldiers broke the office doors and confiscated material. The UN published a report finding no basis for Israel’s claims about the groups and concluded that the targeted organizations provided “critical human rights, humanitarian and development work in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

The Trump administration’s sanctions on the legal group comes amid the deadliest period in history for Palestinian prisoners. Addameer says that 10,100 Palestinians are currently being held in Israeli detention, twice the amount that were being held before the October 7 attack. That number does no include prisoners from Gaza being held in Israeli military facilities.

“It is important to highlight the growing number of arbitrary restrictions imposed by the occupation on legal access to imprisoned political leaders and those serving life sentences — particularly since the beginning of the genocidal war on Gaza — including prolonged solitary confinement,” reads a joint statement put out by Addameer and a number of other human rights groups last month.

“The inhumane conditions in which Palestinian political prisoners are being held represent another facet of the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip,” it continues. “The continued escalation by the brutal prison system against detainees in various prisons and military camps has entered a more dangerous phase than in previous months. Time has now become a critical factor in determining the fate of thousands of prisoners and detainees held by the Israeli occupation, amid a period in which Israel continues to carry out acts of genocide with complete impunity.”

The Trump administration’s sanctions were criticized by many on social media.

“The Trump administration, continuing its complicity with the Israeli regime in the perpetration of genocide in Palestine, just days after sanctioning judges of the ICC, has now announced sanctions on the celebrated & long-serving Palestinian human rights organization,” wrote human rights attorney Craig Mokhiber. “The US, on behalf of an oppressive foreign regime, is criminalizing humanitarian & human rights work.”

“Addameer is a first-rate human rights organization dedicated to exposing Israeli violations against Palestinian prisoners, which is precisely why it has been targeted by Israel’s extremist government and now the Trump administration,” tweeted author Khaled Elgindy.