Introduction

In August 2021-January 2022, the United Nations’ “oPt Humanitarian Fund,” managed by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA),  is providing $194,255 to explicitly aid Palestinian NGOs in exploiting international legal frameworks to demonize Israel.

The project, “Advocacy, monitoring and documentation of HR and IHL violations and related trends in the Gaza Strip and West Bank,” is run by the PFLP-linked NGOs Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), Al Mezan, and Al-Haq — the latter designated in October by Israel as a terror organization.

The project

According to the description, the project focuses on alleging Israeli human rights and International Humanitarian Law (IHL) violations, particularly during the May 2021 Gaza conflict. Notably, “lawyers will also support in documentation of key incidents and collection of affidavits to build legal case files for future engagement with international justice mechanism [s],” (emphasis added) presumably referring to the International Criminal Court (ICC)’s investigation against Israel.  The description refers to the UN Human Rights Council Commission of Inquiry. OCHA’s Financial Tracking Service reveals that additional Palestinian, Israeli, and international NGOs will serve as implementing partners. These include B’Tselem, Adalah, Yesh Din, War Child Holland, and Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCI-P), and Addameer — the last two also newly designated by Israel as PFLP-linked terror organizations. Notably, several of these NGOs are members of the UNICEF Palestine’s “working group” which campaigns to include the IDF on a UN blacklist of “grave” violators of children’s rights.

The oPt Humanitarian Fund

The oPt Humanitarian Fund is a UN OCHA-directed “emergency pooled fund,” which “is primarily aligned to support the delivery of strategic humanitarian response identified under Humanitarian Response Plan while retaining the flexibility to allocate funds to unforeseen events or special requirements…Members of the oPt HF Advisory Board include the donors to the fund and representatives of national and international NGOs and UN agencies” (emphasis added).

However, in contrast to its stated mission of providing a humanitarian response to Palestinians, the Fund is instead actively bankrolling political warfare with the cooperation of terror-affiliated NGOs.

In 2021, nine countries have provided oPt Humanitarian Fund with $27 million.

Funder CountryPaid Amount
Germany$12.60 million
Belgium$7.21 million
Sweden$2.29 million
Switzerland$2.22 million
Norway$1.21 million
Republic of Korea$500,000
Ireland$363,196
France$304,878
Iceland$196,263

Source: UN OCHA

Germany, the main funder of the oPt Humanitarian Fund, officially opposes an ICC probe of Israel, affirming that “the court has no jurisdiction because of the absence of the element of Palestinian statehood required by international law.”