MOSCOW (RT) – A classified dossier which the Zionist regime used to brand six Palestinian NGOs as ‘terrorist’ outfits reportedly contains no concrete evidence to prove their involvement in violent activities or to otherwise justify the designation.
The document, which bears the logo of the occupying regime’s Shin Bet spy agency, is the result of its inquiry into six West Bank civil society groups accused of securing foreign funding for a Palestinian group, RT reported.
Despite the severity of the charges, however, the Zionist regime has yet to publicly release any evidence backing up its decision to brand the NGOs as terror organizations.
Zionist war minister Benny Gantz prompted international backlash last month after he officially placed a terror designation on the six groups on the basis of the Shin Bet investigation.
Accessing the dossier, The Intercept and Israeli outlets +972 and Local Call found that the information used was based chiefly on interrogations of two accountants from another Palestinian NGO, the Health Work Committees, which was also labelled a ‘terrorist’ organization last year.
The accountants’ lawyers told the outlets that occupying regime authorities had “distorted” their testimonies, which were allegedly gathered under threats to family members and harsh interrogation methods that might be considered “torture”.
Shin Bet reportedly used a single statement from one accountant, about forging fake receipts for Health Work Committees, to accuse the other organizations of being involved in a similar scheme to fund the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) group. The men apparently described a number of educational and humanitarian initiatives which could be affiliated with the organization as “PFLP activities”, but they did not describe any financing of violent activities.
The outlets said that none of the testimonies cited in the 74-page dossier were backed up by any documents or receipts. The dossier was apparently delivered in May to a number of EU countries that have funded the organizations, prompting independent audits and public criticism from Dutch and Belgian ministers, who stated that the allegations did not contain “even a single concrete piece of evidence”.
“Since the Europeans didn’t buy the allegations, [the Zionist regime] used unconventional warfare: declaring the organizations terrorist groups,” Michael Sfard, an Israeli human rights lawyer representing Al-Haq, one of the accused Palestinian NGOs, told The Intercept.
He added that the charges were a “political [attack] under the guise of security”.
Meanwhile, senior officials from two unspecified European countries told the outlet that since Gantz’s announcement, the occupying regime has ignored all requests for more information. While the Zionist war ministry of did not comment, two U.S. sources told the outlets that a Zionist delegation had presented similar dossiers on Capitol Hill.