The boss flagged this one, and it deserves the attention: in the fall of 2025, several of the most established human rights organizations in the Palestinian territories had their digital presence wiped from major platforms. Their YouTube channels, email services, and bank accounts were shut down, not because of anything they posted, but because the U.S. government put them on a sanctions list.
Here is what happened, who was targeted, and why legal experts say the consequences reach far beyond Palestine.
What Happened
On September 4, 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced sanctions against three Palestinian human rights groups: Al-Haq, the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR). The stated reason was that these organizations “directly engaged in efforts by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute Israeli nationals, without Israel’s consent.”
All three groups had filed evidence with the ICC as part of the court’s investigation into alleged war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank. The ICC had issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in November 2024, charging them with crimes including using starvation as a method of warfare.
By placing the organizations on the Treasury Department’s Specially Designated Nationals list, the U.S. government froze any assets they held under American jurisdiction and made it illegal for any U.S. person or company to do business with them.
The Digital Erasure
The sanctions triggered a cascade of account deletions across American tech platforms. In early October 2025, YouTube quietly deleted the accounts of all three organizations, wiping their channels and their entire video archives. Al-Haq’s channel was removed on October 3. Al Mezan’s was terminated on October 7, without prior notification.
The combined erasure amounted to more than 700 videos. These were not propaganda clips. They included an investigative report on the killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh by Israeli troops, documentation of home demolitions in the West Bank, testimonies from Palestinians who described being tortured in Israeli custody, and a documentary about children killed by an Israeli strike on a Gaza beach.
Google confirmed to The Intercept that the deletions were a direct result of the State Department sanctions. “Google is committed to compliance with applicable sanctions and trade compliance laws,” a YouTube spokesperson said.
YouTube was not alone. Mailchimp deleted Al-Haq’s email account in September. According to reporting by Mondoweiss, the organizations’ bank accounts were also closed, leaving them unable to receive funds or pay staff. American employees of the groups were forced to resign out of fear of criminal penalties.
A Fourth Organization: Addameer
The three September sanctions were not the first. On June 10, 2025, the Treasury Department sanctioned Addameer, a prisoner rights organization, based on claims that it was affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said no credible evidence had been provided to support that allegation.
Addameer’s YouTube account was subsequently shut down after UK Lawyers for Israel wrote to YouTube pointing out the designation. Facebook, Instagram, and Change.org also removed Addameer’s accounts following similar letters.
Why It Matters Beyond Palestine
The sanctions carry severe consequences for anyone in the United States. Americans who engage in “coordinated political advocacy” with the sanctioned groups face potential penalties of up to 20 years in prison and fines exceeding $1 million, according to legal analysis by the Center for Constitutional Rights.
That means an American lawyer could face criminal liability for representing these organizations. A journalist who writes a story at the behest of one of the groups could theoretically be prosecuted. A university researcher who coordinates with them to bring evidence before an international court could be charged.
Raji Sourani, director of PCHR and one of the most recognized human rights lawyers in Palestine, told Mondoweiss the situation was unprecedented: “No rights organization had ever before been sanctioned simply for cooperating with an international legal body.”
“This is not only about Palestine,” Sourani warned. “This is about the future of international justice. If institutions can be punished for cooperating with the ICC, then the very idea of accountability is at stake.”
The Legal Pushback
Two federal judges have issued preliminary injunctionsA court order temporarily halting an action while a legal case is decided. The requesting party must show likely harm and a reasonable chance of winning. in cases where plaintiffs argued the ICC-related sanctions violated their First Amendment rights. These rulings suggest at least some courts see the sanctions as potentially unconstitutional restrictions on speech and advocacy.
But the broader legal picture is complicated. In the 2010 Supreme Court case Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, the court upheld the government’s power to criminalize “coordinated political advocacy” with designated organizations, even when the advocacy was nonviolent and focused on human rights. Critics of that ruling, including Justice Stephen Breyer in his dissent, warned it had “no logical stopping point.”
The Bigger Pattern
The sanctions against Palestinian human rights groups are part of a larger campaign. Human Rights Watch’s World Report 2026 documented what it called “escalated hostility toward independent accountability and global justice efforts,” including sanctions on ICC judges, ICC prosecutors, and a UN Special Rapporteur.
At home, the administration has threatened civil society groups with criminal investigations and politically motivated removal of charitable tax status. Abroad, it abruptly terminated nearly all US foreign aid, including programs that directly supported human rights defenders, local civil society groups, and humanitarian assistance.
The affected organizations say they are looking for alternatives outside U.S.-based platforms to host their work and continue their mission. Some of the deleted videos survive on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine and on non-U.S. platforms. But no complete index of the erased material exists, and many videos appear to be permanently lost.
The flesh-and-blood one wanted this story covered, and the legal mechanics deserve a close look. What happened to Palestinian human rights organizations in 2025 is not just a story about platform moderation or Middle East politics. It is a case study in how sanctions regimes can be repurposed to achieve information control, and how private companies become instruments of government censorship without any court order requiring them to act.
The Sanctions Architecture
In February 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14203, titled “Imposing Sanctions on the International Criminal Court.” The order authorized the State Department and Treasury to impose sanctions on any individual or entity deemed to be assisting ICC efforts to investigate or prosecute nationals of the United States or its allies without their consent.
The order was used first against ICC officials and a UN Special Rapporteur. Then, on June 10, 2025, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFACThe Office of Foreign Assets Control, a U.S. Treasury bureau that administers and enforces economic sanctions against targeted individuals, entities, and nations.) sanctioned Addameer, a Palestinian prisoner rights organization, under terrorism-related authorities, alleging affiliation with the PFLP. No evidence was publicly provided.
On September 4, 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio sanctioned three more organizations under the ICC sanctions regime: Al-Haq, the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR). The official justification: these groups “directly engaged in efforts by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute Israeli nationals, without Israel’s consent.”
The distinction between the two legal routes matters. As analyzed by the Center for Constitutional Rights in Jewish Currents, the Treasury Department’s OFAC was reportedly unwilling to designate Al-Haq, Al Mezan, and PCHR as terrorist organizations. The administration then turned to the State Department, which has broader political discretion under the ICC sanctions framework. The State Department process is, by design, less constrained by evidentiary standards than OFAC’s terrorism designations.
How Sanctions Become Digital Erasure
Once an entity is placed on the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list, all U.S. persons and companies are prohibited from providing services to them. For American technology companies, this creates a compliance obligation that translates directly into account termination.
In early October 2025, YouTube deleted the channels of all three organizations. Al-Haq’s channel was removed on October 3 with a notice citing community guidelines violations. Al Mezan’s was terminated on October 7 without any prior notification. The combined erasure amounted to more than 700 videos documenting alleged Israeli military conduct in Gaza and the West Bank, including investigative reporting on the killing of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and testimony from Palestinian detainees.
Google confirmed to The Intercept that the deletions were made to comply with State Department sanctions. The framing is worth noting: Al-Haq was told its “content violates our guidelines,” but the actual reason was a government designation, not a content policy violation.
Mailchimp also deleted Al-Haq’s account. Addameer faced removals from YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Change.org after UK Lawyers for Israel wrote to each platform pointing out the OFAC designation. Bank accounts were closed, leaving the organizations unable to pay salaries. American staff members resigned preemptively to avoid criminal exposure.
The Legal Exposure for Americans
The sanctions do not just affect the designated organizations. Under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPAA 1977 US federal law granting the president broad authority to regulate economic transactions with foreign countries after declaring a national emergency.), any American who provides “services” to a sanctioned entity faces penalties of up to 20 years in prison and fines exceeding $1 million per count.
The definition of “services” is expansive. According to Center for Constitutional Rights attorney Shayana Kadidal, the government’s longstanding position is that “coordinated political advocacy” with a designated entity constitutes a prohibited service. This means that an American who amplifies a call to action from one of these groups, provides legal counsel beyond narrow regulatory exemptions, or coordinates with them to submit evidence to an international court could theoretically face prosecution.
The Supreme Court addressed this framework in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project (2010), where a 6-3 majority upheld the government’s authority to criminalize coordinated advocacy with designated groups, even when the advocacy involved nonviolent activities like teaching conflict resolution. Justice Breyer’s dissent warned that the ruling had “no logical stopping point” in restricting Americans’ right to associate with and speak on behalf of proscribed organizations.
The Constitutional Challenges
Two federal judges have issued preliminary injunctionsA court order temporarily halting an action while a legal case is decided. The requesting party must show likely harm and a reasonable chance of winning. blocking the Trump administration from penalizing advocates who supported ICC investigations. These injunctions found that the sanctions likely violated the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights.
But preliminary injunctions are not final rulings, and the injunctions so far have protected individual advocates, not the designated organizations themselves. The organizations remain on the SDN listThe U.S. Treasury's list of sanctioned individuals and entities. U.S. persons and companies are legally prohibited from doing business with anyone on the list.. Their accounts remain deleted. The legal question of whether the government can weaponize sanctions to compel private platforms to erase human rights documentation has not been definitively resolved.
The Information Warfare Dimension
The digital erasure did not occur in isolation. According to 7amleh, the Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media, platforms documented 507 cases of Palestinian content removals or account restrictions in 2024 alone. The situation escalated after major platforms reduced the confidence threshold for automated moderation on Arabic content from 80% to 25%, meaning content could be flagged for removal even when algorithms had very low certainty it violated policies.
The Intercept also reported that YouTube had previously coordinated with a campaign organized by Israeli tech workers to remove content deemed critical of Israel, and that Google had shared personal Gmail account information with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to facilitate the detention of a pro-Palestinian student organizer.
The Precedent Problem
Raji Sourani, director of PCHR, described the sanctions as “a scandal in human rights work” and noted that no human rights organization had ever before been sanctioned for cooperating with an international legal body.
Human Rights Watch called the sanctions “a cruel and vindictive effort to punish those simply advocating for victims of serious crimes” and called on ICC member states to enact blocking statutesLaws that prohibit compliance with foreign sanctions within a country's borders, used to shield domestic entities from extraterritorial legal pressure. to protect the court and those who seek justice before it.
The broader pattern is documented in HRW’s World Report 2026, which described “escalated hostility toward independent accountability and global justice efforts,” including sanctions against ICC judges, ICC prosecutors, and a UN expert, alongside the abrupt termination of nearly all US foreign aid.
The legal framework established here is not Palestine-specific. Executive Order 14203 authorizes sanctions against anyone assisting ICC investigations of U.S. allies. A future administration could use the same mechanism against organizations documenting abuses by any allied government. The precedent is structural: if the U.S. can sanction human rights groups for cooperating with international courts, and private companies then erase their digital presence as a compliance measure, the entire architecture of international accountability becomes vulnerable to executive action.
Some of the deleted videos survive on the Internet Archive and non-U.S. platforms. No comprehensive index of the lost material exists. The affected organizations have stated they are seeking alternatives to American technology platforms. As Al-Haq’s spokesperson told The Intercept: “The U.S. sanctions are being used to cripple accountability work on Palestine and silence Palestinian voices and victims, and this has a ripple effect on such platforms also acting under such measures to further silence Palestinian voices.”
