Switzerland suspends funding of Palestinian NGO

The Swiss Foreign Ministry announced on Sunday that it had stopped funding the Palestinian NGO Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Secretariat, due to alleged links to terrorism, the Jerusalem Post has reported.

The Ramallah-based organisation is alleged to provide funds to the Women’s Affairs Technical Committee (WATC), an organisation that endorses the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) campaign, and named a youth centre after a slain Palestinian resistance fighter, Dalal Mughrabi.

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The Secretariat also receives funding from Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden, and states that its objective is to promote “the effective realisation of adherence to human rights and international humanitarian law” in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Numerous Palestinian organisations have come under fire from donors due to their support for the BDS campaign. In May, Israel pressured the Danish government into suspending support and funding to groups that advocated for a boycott of Israeli goods.