(Washington, D.C., November 13, 2026) – In response to Israeli authorities placing a travel ban on globally renowned human rights defender and executive director of Al-Haq, Shawan Jabarin, DAWN issues the following statement:
"Israel's travel ban against the head of one of the most respected civil society organizations in Palestine and across the world is the latest escalation in its all-out assault on human rights advocacy and international law," said Omar Shakir, executive director of DAWN. "Such a brazen move, taken more than five years after Israel outlawed al-Haq, may not have happened had the U.S. not sanctioned Al-Haq earlier this year, signaling its tacit approval of action against the organization."
"Members of Congress should make clear that the persecution of human rights defenders and attempts to silence civil society are not in line with American values," said Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man, Israel-Palestine director at DAWN. "They should demand that Israel lift the travel ban against Jabarin and the outlawing of Al-Haq."
"Israel is yet against silencing Palestinians and trying to stop the world from hearing their testimony," said Raed Jarrar, advocacy director at DAWN. "From travel bans and entry restrictions, Israel continues to cage Palestinians in. States should take concrete action to press Israel to lift its movement restrictions and end its apartheid against the Palestinian people."
Background:
The Israeli military controls who may enter and exit the occupied West Bank through its only other land border, with Jordan. Those restrictions are generally imposed on an individual basis and prevent Palestinians, including those who have dual citizenship, from leaving the West Bank to travel outside Palestine.
In addition to its near-complete ban on travel for 2 million Palestinians in Gaza, the Israeli military, at the direction of the Shin Bet secret police, has active travel bans on an estimated 10,000 Palestinians at any given time, according to Israeli human rights group HaMoked.
The process is opaque. In a 2016 ruling appealing one such travel ban, the Israeli High Court of Justice took the rare step of reprimanding the military commander of the West Bank—and by extension the West Bank Legal Advisor—for making decisions on security-related travel bans without first reviewing the intelligence on which they were based. But even when there is evidence, there is almost never an opportunity for an individual to defend oneself or challenge the decision, because the evidence is often kept secret—even from lawyers representing the banned individual.
According to data obtained by Hamoked, in nearly half of all travel bans in which the banned individual submitted a simple administrative "objection," the military lifted the ban, usually within the eight-week period stipulated by Israeli law, further demonstrating the policy's arbitrariness.
For more, please see Al-Haq's latest statement, "Immediate Action Alert: Al-Haq's General Director, Shawan Jabarin Banned from Travelling outside Palestine, Calls on Third States to Intervene."
