A/HRC/34/70 source. This is the first known attack on Dutch soil against a human rights defender working on issues relating to the International Criminal Court. 60 45. In June 2016, the Israeli military arrested Mohammed El-Halabi, the director of operations in Gaza for World Vision, on charges that he had diverted large amounts of aid money to the military wing of Hamas. World Vision is an international Christian humanitarian charity with global operations working on behalf of children and communities, and it has worked in Gaza for several decades. Mr. El-Halabi has been incarcerated by Israel since his arrest, with little access to legal counsel. World Vision stated in early February 2017 that it had not seen any credible evidence supporting the charges against Mr. El-Halabi and in fact the amount he was accused of diverting is much larger than the World Vision annual budget for Gaza. After conducting a thorough audit of its Gaza operations, World Vision stated that its review, to date, had not generated any concerns about the purported diversion of its resources. It has supported Mr. El-Halabi’s presumption of innocence and his right to a fair trial. Mr. El-Halabi pleaded not guilty to the charges in early February 2017. His trial is continuing. 61 46. Human rights organizations working in Gaza face a unique array of obstacles to the conduct of their work. Among the biggest is their non-existent freedom of movement, as described in detail above. For human rights defenders in Gaza this means that they are rarely allowed to journey to Israel, the West Bank or abroad. They cannot travel to regional or international human rights meetings and forums; they cannot attend external training programmes; their ability to participate by videoconferencing is restricted by the sporadic electricity supply in Gaza and the limitations of the medium; and their ability to interact, inform and work with the rest of the world is likewise diminished. This enforced isolation substantially impairs the protection and advancement of human rights in Gaza. 62 47. Israeli human rights defenders who work on the many issues related to the Occupied Palestinian Territory are also experiencing an increasingly virulent environment. A moment that exemplifies this turning of the screw was in October 2016, when Hagai El-Ad, the Director-General of B’Tselem, together with Lara Friedman, the Director for Policy and Government Relations at Americans for Peace Now, delivered a presentation to the Security Council in New York. He warned of the expanding settlement enterprise and the deteriorating human rights situation for the Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and cited the need for effective international intervention to bring the Israeli occupation to an end. 63 In response, many in the Israeli political leadership stridently denounced B’Tselem, casting it as unpatriotic, traitorous and a political outcast. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned Mr. El-Ad for joining the “chorus of slander” against Israel, stating: “What these organizations cannot achieve through democratic elections in Israel, they try to achieve by international coercion.”64 The Likud Member of the Knesset and whip for the governing coalition, David Bitan, demanded that Mr. El-Ad be stripped of his Israeli citizenship.65 Danny Danon, Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations, said: “It is a shame that Israeli groups have been drafted into the diplomatic terror war that the Palestinians are waging against us.”66 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 Peter Cluskey, “No boundaries in threats to International Criminal Court”, Irish Times, 16 August 2016, and Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, “Attacks against Al-Haq’s representative in Europe, Ms. Nada Kiswanson”, 11 August 2016, and Amjad Iraqi, “Who’s sending death threats to Palestinian advocates in The Hague”, +972, 17 August 2016. See also Gili Cohen, “Top official in Christian aid group charged with funnelling funds to Hamas”, Haaretz, 4 August 2016. Communications with leaders of the Palestine Center for Human Rights and the Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights; and Gisha, “Split apart. Palestinian civil society in its own words on the impact of the separation policy and the potential should the policy be reversed”, March 2016. See www.btselem.org/settlements/20161014_security_council_address and peacenow.org/page.php?name=lara-addresses-the-unsc#.WNJ9UG_ytpg. See www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.748737. See www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.748609. See hamodia.com/2016/10/16/netanyahu-leftist-groups-that-testified-at-u-n-security-council-beyondthe-pale/. 13