Treasury Sanctions Three Leading Palestinian Human Rights Organizations for ICC Advocacy
Washington DC, September 5, 2025 — The U.S. Treasury's financial sanctions against the three most prominent and important Palestinian human rights organizations is a dangerous abuse of authority to punish civil society organizations pursuing lawful advocacy for accountability, said DAWN today. The Trump administration announced the sanctions on September 4, 2025 against Al Haq, Al Mezan, and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), declaring that the organizations had "directly engaged in efforts by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute Israeli nationals."
"The Trump administration has weaponized U.S. sanctions against these Palestinian human rights organizations for one reason, and one reason only: to protect Israeli war criminals from accountability," said Sarah Leah Whitson, DAWN's executive director. "It's mind-boggling that this administration has lifted sanctions on extremist Israeli settlers who have burned, killed, and tortured Palestinians and Americans, but imposed sanctions on civil society organizations peacefully advocating to bring Israeli war criminals to justice."
The U.S. government traditionally has deployed Treasury sanctions against individuals and organizations whom it alleges have committed financial and human rights violations and crimes. The imposition of U.S. sanctions on human rights organizations anywhere in the world is nearly unprecedented; the only prior such sanction against a human rights organization was imposed by the Trump administration on June 10, 2025 against Palestinian organization Adameer, which it accused of having ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. The most recent designation of Al Haq, Al Mezan, and PCHR are not terrorism-related but solely due to their accountability work vis-a-vis the ICC.
The sanctions on these three Palestinian organizations follow the sanctions imposed by Israel against DAWN, Al Haq Europe, Law for Palestine, the Hind Rajab Foundation, and Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights, as well as individual staff of these organizations, on June 30, 2025; Israel also justified its sanctions as punishment for the work these organizations had done urging the ICC to prosecute persons responsible for war crimes in Gaza, as part of the ongoing investigation into crimes in Palestine. On November 21, 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
"The Trump administration's 'Israel First' policies – including these sanctions against human rights organizations – will only further isolate our country from the rest of the world, standing alone to arm and support Israel in its genocide and criminal occupation," said Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man, DAWN's Israel-Palestine director. "The Trump administration will surely and quickly deploy these tactics against other civil society activists, from environmental groups to gun safety advocates and eventually to any perceived political opponent anywhere in the world."
President Trump acted quickly on the day he assumed office to lift Treasury Department sanctions imposed by the Biden administration on Israeli settlers and settlement organizations responsible for violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. The sanctioned individuals include Yinon Levy, who murdered nonviolent Palestinian activist Awdah Hathaleen just months after the Trump administration removed sanctions against him. Another of the previously sanctioned violent settlers, Isaac Levi Pilant, has sued DAWN for discovery in retaliation for the organization's work documenting his crimes.
"The Trump administration is pulling all the stops for Israel: gifting it with a bottomless supply of taxpayer-funded weapons, vetoing UN Security Council resolutions, and promoting plans to expel Palestinians from Gaza and annex the West Bank. Now Trump is sanctioning not only the ICC but groups advocating with the court," said Raed Jarrar, DAWN's advocacy director. "Sanctioning the ICC and groups seeking accountability with the court is not just immoral, it is illegal. Obstruction of justice is in itself a violation of the Rome Statute and Trump is yet again violating international law to support Israel's crimes."
