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Human Rights Watch researchers resign after report on Palestinian refugees' right of return is blocked
Human Rights Watch researchers have resigned after the organisation blocked a report on Palestinian refugees’ right of return.
HRW said the report had reportedly raised 'complex and consequential issues' [Getty]
Two researchers from Human Rights Watch's Israel and Palestine team have resigned after the organisation's leadership blocked publication of a report examining Israel's denial of Palestinian refugees' right of return.
Omar Shakir, who led the team for nearly a decade, and assistant researcher Milena Ansari stepped down after HRW blocked the report, which concluded that the long-term refusal to allow refugees to return to their homes could amount to a crime against humanity under international law.
In his resignation letter, Shakir said the decision had marked a departure from the organisation's established review process and reflected an unwillingness to apply legal standards consistently when it came to Palestinian refugees.
He said the report had already undergone extensive internal review and was prepared for publication before being blocked.
HRW said the report had reportedly raised "complex and consequential issues", adding that publication was "paused", allegedly pending additional analysis and research.
Nakba displacement and the denial of Palestinian return
The unpublished 33-page report, seen by The Guardian, focused on Israel's continued denial of the right of return to Palestinians displaced in 1948 and 1967, as well as to those more recently forced from their homes in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
According to Shakir, the research sought to connect present-day mass displacement with the original expulsion of Palestinians during the Nakba, which paved the way for the creation of Israel, arguing that decades of enforced exile have caused sustained and severe harm.
The report said that the denial of return could fall under the category of "other inhumane acts", a crime against humanity recognised in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
The analysis drew on previous ICC findings, including a 2018 ruling that blocking the return of Rohingya refugees to Myanmar could constitute such a crime.
Internal correspondence cited by The Guardian showed that some senior HRW officials reportedly raised concerns that the report's conclusions could be seen as challenging Israel's Jewish majority.
Shakir said he was told leadership feared the findings would be seized on by critics, despite the organisation's longstanding support for the right of return.
Israel's current demographics comprise around seven million Jews, most of whom had flocked to historic Palestine after the Second World War, and roughly two million Palestinians.
Meanwhile, an estimated six million Palestinian refugees live in neighbouring countries and across the wider diaspora, most of whom were displaced during the mass expulsions of 1948 and 1967, and who continue to seek return to their homeland.
UN General Assembly Resolution 194 of 1948 states that refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so, while a later General Assembly resolution in 1974 reaffirmed Palestinians' inalienable right to return to the homes and property from which they were displaced.
The UN Security Council has also called on Israel to facilitate the return of those who fled during the 1967 war.
Concerns over HRW's credibility and independence
The decision to block the report prompted internal dissent, with more than 200 staff members signing a letter warning that shelving work late in the review process had risked undermining confidence in the organisation's credibility and independence.
The New Arab has reached out to HRW for comment.
Shakir, who was deported from Israel in 2019 over his advocacy on Palestinian rights, said narrowing the report to focus only on recent displacement would have distorted its findings.
He argued that such an approach would imply that short-term displacement could meet the legal threshold for crimes against humanity, while decades of enforced exile would not.
He said the organisation had a responsibility to refugees whose testimonies formed the basis of the report.
"Witnessing the anguish in the Palestinians I interviewed who are effectively condemned to lifelong refugee status is among the hardest things I’ve seen," he said. "They deserve to know why their stories aren’t being told."
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