Benny Gantz designates six Palestinian groups as ‘terrorist’

An Israeli envoy was set to hold talks in the United States this week after Defence Minister Benny Gantz outlawed six Palestinian rights groups.

Gantz said the organisations, which include human rights group Al-Haq and Addameer, which monitors the treatment of Palestinian prisoners, should now be considered terrorist organisations.

It came after the Shin Bet intelligence service provided “extensive and convincing” evidence linking the six groups to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, defence ministry sources said.

But the designation was criticised internationally and the US State Department disputed Israeli claims that they had been notified in advance.

Israeli Foreign Ministry official Joshua Zarka said the envoy would visit Washington, DC to “give them all the details and to present them all the intelligence”, the AP news agency reported.

On Sunday the Palestinian observer mission at the United Nations called on the Security Council to condemn the designation of the groups as terrorist organisations, describing it as “false and libellous slander”.