The Palestinian Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) continue to struggle with a “shrinking space” that is making it increasingly difficult for them to operate freely and effectively. The shrinking space manifests itself in numerous ways, including restrictions on movement, administrative hurdles and burdens, criminalisation of Palestinian CSOs by Israeli authorities, smear campaigns by pro-occupation organisations, politically motivated interference in their work by international donors, and increased conditionality of donor funding. The War on Gaza over the past twenty months has exacerbated these challenges, with Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, widespread destruction of infrastructure, and the displacement of staff making it nearly impossible for some organisations to sustain their operations.

In a recently published report by a consortium of responsible progressive Belgium-based donors and organisations, we examined the shrinking operational space for Palestinian CSOs, with a focus on the evolving challenges posed by Israeli policies, donor funding conditions, and internal Palestinian factors. For the purposes of the research, the study focused on eleven organisations, each specialising in a distinct area related to human rights and support for Palestinian society. These fields include prisoner rights, children’s rights, women’s rights, farmers’ rights, healthcare services, the promotion of art and culture, legal aid, agricultural support, and research on freedom and justice. The sample includes organisations operating across all regions of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). Our methodology combined quantitative and qualitative approaches, including surveys distributed to selected CSOs, semi-structured interviews, and a desk review of annual reports.

We found that all CSOs surveyed had experienced a shrinking space that impacted their work, operations, and service delivery as they had been negatively impacted by Israeli measures, including land confiscation, movement restrictions, and the baseless labelling of CSOs as “terrorist entities”, which disrupted funding streams and led to operational shutdowns. Israeli policies, such as restrictions on movement through checkpoints, roadblocks, and the separation wall, make it exceedingly difficult for CSOs to reach vulnerable communities. Additionally, policies of land confiscation, destruction of infrastructure, arrest campaigns, and settler violence have directly undermined the development efforts of these organisations.

Furthermore, the routine targeting of Palestinian CSOs by Israeli authorities through unfounded allegations of “terrorism”, invoking security concerns to justify office raids, asset confiscations, and staff arrests, constitutes another manifestation of the challenges faced by the Palestinian civil society organisations. In fact, the majority (seventy per cent) of the surveyed organisations reported being targeted by smear campaigns orchestrated by preoccupation non-governmental organisations, which was the second most frequently cited contributor to the shrinking of Palestinian civic space, only behind Israeli authorities. Half of the surveyed organisations explicitly identified NGO Monitor as a threat to Palestinian civic space.

While a third of the surveyed organisations reported having been subjected to restrictive measures by the Palestinian authorities, Palestinian CSOs unanimously identified the growing politicisation and conditionality of donor funding as a significant threat to Palestinian civil society as a whole. Very few donors possessed the political courage, as most donors avoid politically sensitive topics and regions, instead prioritising less contentious humanitarian aid initiatives that were less likely to provoke opposition from Israel. The result was that many Palestinian CSOs felt abandoned by their international partners.

As a result, half of the surveyed organisations reported having lost funding due to restrictive measures between 2017 and 2022, with the percentage rising to eighty per cent after October 2023. This, in turn, resulted in the diversion of resources away from the core activities of these organisations, especially the ones working in the domain of human rights, and resulted in a significant reduction in offered services and in staffing. Therefore, the organisations were forced to adapt by scaling back programmes, decentralising operations, and seeking alternative funding streams.

For Palestinian CSOs to survive and thrive despite the shrinking operational space, urgent changes are needed from donors, international stakeholders, and within the sector itself. Localisation and decolonisation must become central to donor strategies. Donors need to provide political rather than just humanitarian support. Tackling the fragmentation of Palestinian civil society is another pressing issue to undertake. Additionally, donors need to provide targeted financial and political support to Palestinian civil society to reverse the trend of shrinking civic space, and they also need to explicitly oppose and actively counter any efforts to further restrict and shrink Palestinian civic space.

The Palestinians themselves, including their civil society organisations, need to prioritise and take the lead in three critical areas: Ensure Palestinian agency, adopt an accountability-first approach, and inch towards Unity, especially when their collective erasure is being normalised and debated. Through better coordination and effective self-organising mechanisms, the Palestinian civil society organisations are able to lead a process that articulates alternative, confrontational, and forward-looking visions for Palestine and the Palestinians. They can exemplify to the divided political factions how a home-grown power base could be rebuilt to ensure Palestinian agency and collective local ownership over the present and the future. Palestinian agency, driven by a united Palestinian civil society, needs to be coupled with the adoption of an accountability-first approach and people-driven accountability mechanisms that put the aspirations and needs of the people at the top of agendas, and learn from past failures. Indeed, accountability is a political act par excellence, and this is the role of the civil society, particularly at times when mere existence is a much-needed resistance.

Finally, the aftermath of the War on Gaza and the shifting dynamics of international aid paint a grim future for many Palestinian CSOs, whose contributions to Palestinian society remain vital. Today, while Palestinian CSOs explore ways to survive and face and confront the causes and impacts of the shrinking space at the practical, strategic, political and ethical levels, the time is ripe for the declaration of a Gaza Covenant/Charter/Manifesto to be led by the Palestinian civil society. The Gaza Covenant aims to ensure dignity, self-determination and local ownership in the day after for Gaza, and indeed beyond. It aims at reversing decades of one-way conditionality attached to the delivery of aid that stripped the Palestinians of the political agency and ownership of their present and future. The Gaza Covenant would offer guidance for any external intervention to be based on principles, priorities, and prescriptions set by the Palestinians themselves, and it would be a covenant that articulates a Palestinian vision by Palestinians and for Palestinians to follow, abide by, and contribute to. If the Palestinians themselves don’t ensure their dignity in their own development, no one will.

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By Dr Alaa TARTIR, Senior Researcher and Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Tartir is also a Research Associate and Academic Coordinator at The Geneva Graduate Institute, a Global Fellow at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), a Program and Policy Advisor to Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network, and a Co-Chair of the Governing Board of The Arab Reform Initiative (ARI). Tartir publications can be accessed at www.alaatartir.com