As a concept and as a voluntary and social activity and initiatives, civil society organizations came into being in the mid-Eighties of the last century. During and after the great popular Intifada, and also following the coming into existence of the Palestine National Authority, these organizations took on an established and professional character.
The professionalism of civil activity became more evident after the establishment of the Palestine Authority in 1994[1]. This was when civil society organizations merged their activities to include the provision of services, enabling society to persevere, programs to oversee good governance, accountability, and the fight against corruption, scrutinizing the activities of the Executive Authority, empowering women and youth, respecting common liberties and bolstering the independence of the judiciary.[2]
These organizations maintained their independence in order to enhance their role of surveillance and entered into partnerships with other groups and networks for the same reason, foremost among which was the Network of Civil Organizations in 1994 which strove to prevent the Executive Authority from taking them over and controlling them. That Network also opposed political financing with conditions attached, especially the conditional financing that USAID attempted to impose, and entrenched this principle in law 2000/1 in the Palestine Legislative Assembly.[3] These civil society groups retained their nationalist role and contributed to convey the Palestinian national narrative to international and popular solidarity groups and other international forums and organizations. The positive effects of this activity were reflected in reports issued by major human rights organizations such as Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, both of which described the Israeli occupation regime as a racist and apartheid regime.[4]
Furthermore, civil society groups played an important role in alerting public opinion to the seminal importance of ending political divisions and achieving national unity. Many workshops, seminars and campaigns were held by these groups for that purpose, in addition to their own specialized and professional work. They championed a culture of human rights and democracy and called for holding elections within the framework of representative Palestinian institutions.[5]
Civil society organizations and the assault by the occupation regime following October 7
The brutal nature of Israel’s assault shocked all sectors of society, including civil society organizations. Entire city quarters were wiped out, whole families were removed from the Civil Register, and infrastructures, hospitals, schools, universities, places of worship, water treatment stations and roads were obliterated.
This shock was compounded by the fact that both UNRWA and the Red Cross complied with the orders of the occupation regime that the citizens of Gaza should move to the south of Wadi Gaza, and these two major organizations moved their offices to Rafah. What further exacerbated the shock and confusion was the shelling and air raids, conducted by the occupation regime, of UNRWA schools acting as places of refuge as well as temporary shelters for the displaced in Mawasi Khan Yunis and Rafah, hitherto declared to be “safe humanitarian zones.”[6]
The reaction by civil society organizations to that barbaric assault was very vigorous and energetic. Many of them, through their staffs, voluntary committees, and other on-the-ground organizations associated with them, quickly provided food and health care to the displaced in the schools and temporary camps. The most prominent of these civil society organizations which worked in the relief sector were: the Committees for Agricultural and Medical Relief, the Union of Agricultural Labor Committees, the Al-Awda Hospital, the MA`AN Development Center, the Center for Women’s Affairs, the `A’isha Institute, the Gaza Program for Mental Health, the AJYAL Institute, and the Institute for Excellence in Teaching. The most prominent international organizations were: UNRWA, the World Food Program, The Save the Children Fund, ANERA and Catholic Relief.
Several organizations set up temporary offices in the central and southern regions, that is, in Dayr al-Balah, Khan Yunis and Rafah, the most prominent of these being the Network of Civil Organizations, the Center for Women’s Affairs, the Palestine Center for Human Rights, the `A’isha Institute, and the Center for Development. These organizations distributed working tools among their staff, such as laptops, provided them with electricity and internet, and hosted other organizations to work from their offices.[7] These civil society organizations did not confine their activity to providing food and medical care but extended to include psychological and social work, teaching, and entertainment for children in addition to programs of instruction and training in coping effectively with crises and working under pressure, besides continuing programs to deal with empowering women and youth and protecting civil unity and concord. These organizations issued numerous statements and reports which indicted Israel’s savage onslaught and its catastrophic impact on all aspects of life, whether it be by demolishing the medical or educational sectors, and called upon international organizations to intervene at once to stop that onslaught and allow aid to enter, in response to the policy of induced famine pursued by the occupation regime.[8]
These civil organizations were also very aware of the domestic social fabric of life and adopted a firm stand against war profiteering, exploitation, rising costs, and gangs of thieves. They called for unity, an end to tensions and internal conflicts and for social amity. They were able to recover their status with international aid groups working in Gaza within the framework of the UN Office for Coordinating Humanitarian Aid (OCHA) and enhanced the status and representative character of the local organizations thus helping to prioritize local agendas within the framework of “cluster” organizations. They also issued joint communiques with the Association for International Development Agencies (AIDA)[9], especially with regards to humanitarian and relief efforts, and the importance of removing all the restrictions imposed on Gaza by the occupation regime in the context of a war of induced famine and destruction of medical structure as part of a war of genocide.
These civil society organizations face many challenges, the most salient being an ongoing and barbaric assault with its aftermath of martyrs, the wounded and the maimed and the constant state of fear, anxiety and confusion. All this in addition to huge forced displacements towards the south of Wadi Gaza, the systematic destruction of hospitals, vital infrastructures and homes, within a policy of collective punishment through a severe siege which became even more suffocating following Israeli occupation of the Rafah crossing and the Philadelphia-Saladin axis.[10]
Civil society associations suffer from the presence of tens of international groups that work in disaster areas and do not necessarily coordinate their activities with local groups, thus negatively impacting the work of the latter, especially when they recruit talented staff from these local associations. They also suffer from local problems such as war profiteering, high prices, gangs of thieves, and the emergence of a social class of people who benefit from the state of anxiety and confusion resulting from an onslaught that has now lasted more than a year.
Human Rights groups and the genocide
Palestinian human rights associations have, since the start of the savage onslaught, played an important role in highlighting the war of genocide waged by the occupation regime against the people of Gaza and the northern West Bank regions in particular. These human rights groups have issued a series of reports and policy papers, in addition to providing documentary evidence collected by researchers in the field, attesting to the war crimes and crimes against humanity that are being committed, and are based on interviews, close surveillance, and personal testimonies. The reports assembled by these legal associations have identified and indicted those activities of the occupation which violated basic human rights and the Fourth Geneva Convention[11], such as the demolition of entire urban residential quarters, the shelling of civilian homes, wiping out entire families from the Civil Registry, the destruction of hospitals and turning them into collective graveyards, as well as erasing entire residential areas, universities, schools, places of worship, heritage sites, water treatment stations, medical and civil defense teams, local police stations, emergency rescue teams and volunteer groups. These reports have also indicted forcible population displacements, and herding people under fire into displacement camps, falsely claiming them to be secure humanitarian areas which are then frequently shelled. In addition to all this, it is a war that deliberately aims at causing famine, as well as a war waged against education and health, and one which includes inducing thirst, collective punishment, arbitrary arrests, the splitting of the Gaza Strip and ongoing ethnic cleansing, especially in the northern sector as per the so-called “Generals’ Plan.” This last aims at emptying that northern sector from its population, bringing it under Israeli military and political control and readying it for Israeli settlements. To all this must be added the ongoing Israeli incursions into the towns and camps of the northern regions of the West Bank and the ceaseless attacks on the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the city of Jerusalem.
The reports, statements and policy papers issued by these groups also strove to demolish the false Zionist narratives, and to deconstruct the concepts of antisemitism, victimhood, and “self-defense”, viewing them all as synonyms aimed at bolstering the Zionist propaganda of the occupation regime and bestowing legitimacy on the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the people of Palestine. Palestinian human rights organizations have played an important role in applying pressure and influence through coordination and partnership with other human rights and solidarity associations throughout the world[12], and also through cooperation with the genocide case brought by South Africa to the International Court of Justice. Some Palestinian human rights activists joined the South African team at the ICJ, where they submitted valuable evidence bolstered by proofs and eye-witness testimonies provided by families of victims and governmental officials. All this contributed substantially to the hearings before the ICJ which then declared that Israel, as an occupying regime, had committed acts of genocide. The Court then underlined the need for Israel to take positive steps within a period of one month to end such activities and allow food and other humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip. Furthermore, and at the International Criminal Court, the ICC Prosecutor General requested the Court to issue arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and the then Defense Minister Gallant even though the occupation regime paid no regard to the matter and indeed accused the court and its president of antisemitism.
A debate arose among diverse sectors of the Palestinian people, including elites and intellectuals, as to the effectiveness of adhering to the principles of human rights in view of the total paralysis of the international system and its inability to stop the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people, and this despite the decisions of the ICJ and the ICC. These decisions include the consultative opinion that the occupation and its activities since June, 1967, are illegal, and the latter include settlements, creating facts on the ground, the Judaization of Jerusalem, construction of the racist wall of separation, and entrenching a regime of isolated regions and Bantustans against the Palestinian people. To be noted is the fact that the UN General Assembly has over the years passed many resolutions favoring the people of Palestine, including one that granted the occupation a delay of one year to withdraw from occupied Palestinian lands in 1967[13], a resolution that was adopted thanks to many efforts, particularly those exerted by legal and professional efforts of Palestinian human rights organizations.
At a time when the ongoing genocide showed up the weakness of the international system which is grounded on the military balance of power, and when US predominance continued unabated its support of the occupation regime, the US administration quashed many UN Security Council resolutions that called for a ceasefire by using its veto power. Nor did that administration make any move to implement Resolution 2735[14], which the administration itself had introduced. This clearly demonstrated the administration’s political and diplomatic complicity with the occupation regime and its acting in partnership with that regime in the campaign of genocide against the Palestinians, doing so by extending the occupation lavish support: financial, military, intelligence gathering and logistical backing.
Because of politicization of international law, a policy of double standards as between the Ukraine and Palestine, and the paralysis of the international system, wide sectors of the Palestinian people have been driven to lose faith and hope in international law and the principles of human rights. These latter are used by the imperialist western powers only when they suit their interests and are totally ignored when they don’t, given the organic ties between Israel, Zionism and world imperialism.
Yet the political policies built on the basis of interests and the subsequent complicity and double standards resulting from this, need not drive the Palestinian people and all its components to ignore the principles of human rights. Instead, one should firmly adhere to them as an achievement of humanity. This is especially true of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted in December 1948 in the wake of World War II and as a grounding principle in the establishment of the United Nations. The Declaration is an important legal weapon to be wielded by the Palestinian people in its legal struggle to deconstruct the colonialist narrative of occupation and fortify the Palestinian national narrative. The failure by international society to put an end to Israel’s genocidal war has been a principal threat facing Palestinian human rights groups.
Civil organizations and the financial challenge
Local civil organizations have been suffering from lack of financing and also from political financing initiated by USAID[15]. In the Gaza Strip there are tens of NGOs which compete with local organizations for finance. There exists a mechanism that controls financing through cluster sectors belonging to OCHA, which in turn are mostly dominated by UN groups or by international NGOs.
Local associations had striven to create a common command in some cluster sectors whereby supervision would be shared between the foreign NGOs and the local. Several of these foreign NGOs adopted the idea of localizing aid, meaning that leadership of cluster sectors would be in the hands of local institutions. The local groups had succeeded in heading some sectors and in creating a shared command of others. There are several cluster sectors such as health, water, the environment, food security, protection and education and a new sector was added during this genocidal war: the nutrition sector. Some financial donors were influenced by the propaganda of the occupation regime which spoke of fighting “terrorism” and attempted to demonize the national Palestinian struggle and brand it as “terrorist.” Thus, the former Israeli government headed by Naphtali Bennett had attempted to designate some local NGOs as “terrorist” even though these have been active in the legal and humanitarian fields.[16]
NGOs branded as “terrorist” by decision of former internal security minister Benny Gantz:
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Al-Damir Association for Prisoners Welfare and Human Rights.
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Bisan Center for research and Development.
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Al-Haqq Center for Human Rights.
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Union of Agricultural Committees.
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Union of Palestine Women Committees.
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Defense for Children International-Palestine.[17]
Local NGOs succeeded, through legal efforts, in foiling that initiative by the occupation regime to target these associations. Thus, the European Union announced that the Gantz order was not to be adopted by the EU.
Following October 7, 2023, the Zionist propaganda machine went into action and pressured many donors to cease or at least suspend their donations to many local associations, alleging that they incited violence or else had ties with political parties that advocate “terrorism”. This last is the blanket term applied by the occupation to the legitimate struggle of the Palestinian people. Some states and foreign donors did stop their financing, notably Switzerland and Germany, while others imposed conditions on financing similar to the US conditions, notably the EU and Australia. One should also note that the mechanism of financing through cluster sectors in OCHA also imposed certain conditions which reflected the fact that many sources of finance had succumbed to the occupation regime in this regard.[18]
The hardships encountered by local associations as a result of the conditions imposed by financing agencies coincided with a rush of tens of international associations into Gaza, their numbers increasing during the ongoing onslaught. Some have a charitable umbrella but are not free from political objectives such as the World Central Kitchen which had a hand in building the floating jetty on the shore of Gaza, claiming it would help bring aid to the Gazans by sea. That attempt failed through lack of cooperation by the international community which insisted on opening all crossing points. Equally unsuccessful were the attempts to drop aid from the air. To be noted too is the fact that many international NGOs do not coordinate or share their activities with local associations, a matter which threatens the locals and contributes to a policy of replacement, i.e. replacing local with international NGOs.[19]
Local associations and the challenges of internal instability
As a result of an ongoing campaign of genocide, a suffocating siege and allowing only very infrequent humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, the Palestinian population have been experiencing a state of chaos and instability. The occupation regime targeted UNRWA, the major supplier of aid and services in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli Knesset passed a law declaring UNRWA a “terrorist” and “illegal” organization and measures have been adopted to break it up.[20] Likewise, the brutality of the onslaught and siege, together with the targeting of UNRWA and volunteer groups, be they ministerial officials or Civil Defense and medical rescue teams, have all led to the creation of a state of chaos, given the catastrophic shortage of food, health care, and drinkable water.
In Gaza, family and social tensions and problems began to appear as also in displacement camps and UNRWA schools due to the barbaric nature of Israel’s onslaught and the subsequent dearth of opportunities, options, and competition over meager resources.
The onslaught further weakened the power and reach of the central authority. The divisions created, despite the massive numbers of the martyrs and the wounded and the severity of the tragedy, have prevented the formation of unified committees to manage aid. A state of confusion has arisen most visibly to be seen in war profiteering, the pilfering and theft of aid, a vast inflation in prices, a dearth of food and medicines, plus other matters that aggravated living conditions and worsened the tragic situation in Gaza.
All these things have come to represent new and massive challenges to local organizations which have striven, through issuing statements and appeals, to alert public opinion and decision-makers to the urgency of dealing with this instability, the importance of confronting war profiteers, the reducing of inflation, and calling for a common effort to achieve justice and fairness in aid distribution. They called for forming united groups made up of all political and social forces in order to transcend the state of division and confusion and to carry out a successful and relatively fair distribution of aid.[21]
Gaza needs to have a culture of mutual aid and solidarity, which had been evident during the great popular Intifada. It needs to form a professional and single field organization to manage aid, fight commercial greed, help to reestablish the ties of civil peace and fortify the local social fabric of society. This is especially the case when one realizes that the occupation regime has not solely targeted material infrastructures but also the Palestinians as a human community through destroying their solidarity and mutual dependence.
Local associations must also raise their voice in face of the political threats whose contours have been set forth in what Netanyahu has declared as to the “day following.” One of the components of his plan is the formation of a civil authority subservient to Israel’s military occupation regime. This makes it all the more urgent to call for ending the state of division and achieving national unity by implementing the Beijing Declaration. That Declaration calls for the formation of a united technocrat government that prevents Gaza from being split from the West Bank, a government that foils the scheme to create a civil administration, in addition to empowering the temporary leadership role of the PLO to make it a more democratic and inclusive organ.
Recommendations
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Local civil associations must pursue their relief work and services, especially in the fields of food, health care, accommodation, psychological and social interventions, education, and childcare, especially of orphans.
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These associations need to enhance and strengthen cooperation and partnerships to achieve a greater impact and impose local agendas on international aid agendas.
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These associations ought to continue to reject financing with political conditions attached, especially such as brands our national struggle as “terrorism.”
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It is important to augment financing from sources that are in solidarity with our national struggle.
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We should address ourselves to Palestinian capitalism in the diaspora and urge it to support and finance civil associations as part of backing our national struggle and enhancing our steadfastness.
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Campaigns of pressure should be mounted on decision makers, especially the European Parliament and UN agencies.
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It would be appropriate for Civil Associations to propose strategies of partnership with doctors, teachers and journalists from around the world that aim at solidarity and financing, and in order to prevent Gaza from becoming a region of expulsion and ethnic cleansing.
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Active and vigorous involvement should be undertaken with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) to enhance the national narrative instead of the narrative of the occupation regime, and to restore equating Zionism with racism and genocide in international bodies.
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Enhancing the societal role of civilian action through calling for the formation of a single civilian and political framework that ensures the provision of fair and most urgent aid. War profiteering must be combatted as also price inflation. The civil administration proposed by Netanyahu for governing Gaza on “the following day” should be confronted and denounced as also any scheme to create a “HAMASISTAN” or a “FATHISTAN” , in other words any replica of the experience of the so-called “Village Leagues” that the occupation regime created in the early Eighties of the last century and foiled by the national movement at that time.
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We must continue to call for immediate action to end political divisions and achieve national unity in order to prevent the separation of Gaza from the West Bank, and for rebuilding the Palestinian political system on democratic and collaborative foundations.
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We must beware of international organizations with a profit motive which appear during periods of crisis or disasters but have a hidden political agenda.
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We must work to enhance the leadership role of civil associations in international forums and finance granting agencies.
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We must enhance cooperation and coordination among all local associations active in the Gaza Strip, shun any competitiveness that endangers such cooperation, and fortify the steadfastness of our people.
[1] "الواقع والتحديات في عمل المنظّمات الأهلية في ظلّ حرب الإبادة على غزة"، أمان، آب/ أغسطس 2024.
[2] فراس جابر، "العمل التطوعي في الأرض المحتلة: انطلاق التراث إلى الفعل السياسي والمؤسسي"، بديل - المركز الفلسطيني لمصادر حقوق المواطنة واللاجئين، 2024.
[3] مركز جنيف لحوكمة قطاع الأمن، "الإطار التشريعي للمجتمع المدني".
[4] "نظام الفصل العنصري (أبارتهايد) الإسرائيلي ضد الفلسطينيين"، منظمة العفو الدولية، 1/2/2022.
"تجاوزوا الحد: السلطات الإسرائيلية وجريمتا الفصل العنصري والاضطهاد"، هيومن رايتس ووتش، 27/4/2021.
[5] "الواقع والتحديات في عمل المنظمات الأهلية في ظل حرب الإبادة على غزة"، مصدر سبق ذكره.
[6] "ʾالأونرواʿ تنقل مركز عملياتها وموظفيها الدوليين إلى جنوب غزة"، صحيفة "الشرق الأوسط"، 13/10/2023.
[7] "الواقع والتحديات في عمل المنظمات الأهلية في ظل حرب الإبادة على غزة"، مصدر سبق ذكره.
[8] المصدر نفسه؛ "ضغوط وقيود متزايدة، تقليص فضاء عمل المنظمات الأهلية في قطاع غزة"، مركز الميزان لحقوق الإنسان، 22/9/2019.
[9] Therese Nordhus Lien, “AIDA statement: One year of devastation, marking the unprecedented atrocity crimes and suffering in Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel,” Norwegian People's Aid, 4/10/2024.
[10] "ضغوط وقيود متزايدة، تقليص فضاء عمل المنظمات الأهلية في قطاع غزة"، مصدر سبق ذكره.
[11] "إسرائيل والأرض الفلسطينية المحتلة: يجب احترام قانون الاحتلال"، اللجنة الدولية للصليب الأحمر، 19/7/2024.
[12] "ضغوط وقيود متزايدة، تقليص فضاء عمل المنظمات الأهلية في قطاع غزة"، مصدر سبق ذكره.
[13] "كل ما تحتاجون معرفته عن قرار الجمعية العامة بشأن عضوية فلسطين في الأمم المتحدة"، أخبار الأمم المتحدة، 12/5/2024.
[14] "مجلس الأمن يعتمد قراراً بشأن وقف إطلاق النار بين إسرائيل وحماس"، أخبار الأمم المتحدة، 10/6/2024.
[15] "الواقع والتحديات في عمل المنظمات الأهلية في ظل حرب الإبادة على غزة"، مصدر سبق ذكره.
[16] "شبكة المنظمات الأهلية تنظم ورشة عمل لعرض دراسة حول بيانات التمويل الدولي لفلسطين (2017-2021)"، شبكة المنظمات الأهلية الفلسطينية، 14/6/2023.
[17] مؤسسة الضمير لرعاية الأسير وحقوق الإنسان، بيان صحفي عاجل، 22/10/2021.
[18] "القيود التمييزية التي تفرضها الحكومات الأوروبية المانحة على تمويل المجتمع المدني الفلسطيني تهدد بتفاقم أزمة حقوق الإنسان"، منظمة العفو الدولية، 28/11/2023.
[19] "عدسة الاقتصادي ترصد أعمالاً متواصلة لبناء رصيف بحري في غزة"، "الاقتصادي"، 18/3/2024.
[20] "رسائل فلسطينية للأمم المتحدة حول الإبادة بغزة واستهداف الأونروا"، "الجزيرة نت"، 6/11/2024.
[21] "الواقع والتحديات في عمل المنظمات الأهلية في ظل حرب الإبادة على غزة"، مصدر سبق ذكره.