Gaza and Ramallah, 15 September  2025 — Today, Al Mezan, jointly with Al-Haq and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), delivered an oral statement during the Interactive Dialogue with the Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, George Katrougalos, at the 60th regular session of the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council. The statement raised the alarm over the recent draconian use of sanctions by the United States (U.S.) against our organizations as part of a concerted campaign targeting the International Criminal Court (ICC) with the objective of obstructing accountability for Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people.

Our organizations are not the first to be punished by such measures. Since February 2025, the U.S. has sanctioned senior staff and judges of the ICC, as well as the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese. The sanctions imposed on 4 September 2025 on Al Mezan, Al-Haq, and PCHR marks the first time that non-governmental organizations have been directly targeted under Executive Order 14203, imposing sanctions against anyone involved or assisting the ICC in proceedings regarding the U.S. or its allies. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, as well as dozens of human rights organisations around the world, condemned the U.S. sanctions as “completely unacceptable” and called for their immediate withdrawal.

In the joint intervention during the Interactive Dialogue, our organizations stressed:

[T]he U.S. is targeting three Palestinian human rights organisations for the sole reason that we are documenting the international crimes being committed against Palestinians and advocating for Israel to be held accountable. This sanctions regime is part of a broader pattern of repression aimed at Palestinian Civil Society and intimidate those seeking to hold Israel accountable after decades of apartheid and occupation and now, nearly two years of genocide.

These sanctions are being introduced as Israel’s U.S.-backed genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza is about to enter its third year. Earlier this month, in a severe escalation, Israel’s security cabinet approved a plan for the full takeover of Gaza City, a decision Al Mezan and many others have identified as a dangerous escalation in an ongoing campaign of Palestinian erasure, involving mass forced displacement, the wholesale destruction of Gaza's critical infrastructure, and an Israeli-made famine. This plan deepens an already catastrophic humanitarian crisis directly caused by Israel's genocidal policies. At present, the plan is being implemented amidst the international community’s failure to stop the genocide through any meaningful and concrete measures. It is resulting in large-scale forcible transfer, compelling hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, already repeatedly forcibly displaced, to move into overcrowded and uninhabitable areas in clear violation of international law. This follows the findings of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Famine Review Committee, which has officially determined that governorates in Gaza are either already experiencing famine or are on the brink of it as starvation-related deaths and acute malnutrition escalate at an alarming pace, especially amongst children and newborns.

As Gaza enters one of the darkest chapters of Israel's ongoing genocide, Israel and the U.S. have escalated their efforts to silence Palestinian voices and suppress accountability by targeting the ICC, Palestinian civil society, and Palestinian journalists, while shielding Israel from international scrutiny and accountability. This systematic and immoral deprivation of the Palestinian people's fundamental rights and suppression of international justice-seeking mechanisms not only upholds Israel's long-standing impunity for its international crimes, but undermines the entirely of the global legal order meant to centre the voices of victims around the world and hold accountable all perpetrators of genocide and other grave breaches of international law. Through the joint intervention, the organizations underscored:

Silencing human rights defenders anywhere undermines the pursuit of justice everywhere. The message being sent by Israel and the U.S. is that powerful states will use dishonest tactics to evade accountability.

Al Mezan, Al-Haq, and PCHR call on the Human Rights Council and UN Member States to firmly condemn the arbitrary and baseless use of sanctions as a tool to silence Palestinian civil society and obstruct the investigations of the ICC. We further urge the international community to take immediate concrete measures to pressure the U.S. to rescind these sanctions and to ensure the safety and protection of our operations and staff in Gaza and the West Bank.

We call on the European Union and its Member States to amend and activate the Blocking Statute in order to safeguard individuals and organizations working and engaging with the ICC and to protect the critical work of the sanctioned Palestinian human rights organizations to hold Israel to account. Finally, we call on the broader international community to impose political and economic sanctions on Israel instead of tolerating the genocide harvesting lives of Palestinians and the silencing of Palestinian civil society. We also urge states to impose a full arms embargo on Israel and work towards ending all forms of economic cooperation and diplomatic relations that sustain the unlawful occupation and Israel's settler-colonial and apartheid policies. ---Click here to read the oral statement in full, as delivered.

For media inquiries, please contact us at advocacy@mezan.org.