PALESTINIAN human rights organisations have called for international solidarity, branding Israel’s designation of six leading organisations as terrorist groups part of a “sinister plot” to silence resistance.

At a joint press conference on Saturday, the groups condemned the move by Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz as “an alarming and unjust escalation of attacks against the Palestinian people in their struggle for freedom, justice and the right to self-determination…”

Mr Gantz accused six organisations, including al-Haq, Addameer and the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees, of links to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a Marxist organisation that Israel considers a terrorist group.