After 35 years defending Palestinian children’s rights, Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCIP) has ceased operations, following years of threats and criminalisation by “Israel”.

Its general director described the moment he announced the NGO would close as the “saddest moment” of his time here.

Khaled Quzmar joined the organisation in 1995 as a lawyer representing Palestinian children in the Israeli occupation’s military courts.

He said:

I always used to be proud to talk about DCI work, the achievements we had, and the support we gave to our community. When I announced stopping the work of DCIP it was the saddest moment for me during my more than 30 years here. It hasn’t been an easy decision for me, for the staff, the beneficiaries, or the board of directors, but I was forced to do that due to Israeli restrictions and attacks.

Palestine loses one of its human rights defenders

DCIP started in 1991 as an initiative by activists who had been in prison. They saw firsthand how the Israeli occupation treated Palestinian children when they were detained.

Not only had their childhood ended there and then, but they were also subjected to torture and ill treatment while no lawyer visits took place.

Once released, the problems often continued for these children. They expected to be received as heroes in their communities and so commonly experienced difficulties when it came to spending time with their families or reintegrating back into their schools.

DCIP provided support not just for the children but also for their families and communities. Through DCIP, a lawyer began visiting children in prison and detention centres, and represented them in court.

Meanwhile, psychosocial workers helped them avoid isolation by engaging them with their local community. They also worked with families, showing them how to provide much needed support, something the Israeli occupation prison services have never done for any Palestinian.

But in order to tackle the ills of the system, DCIP needed evidence, Quzmar explained.

Instead of talking about the illegal Israeli military court system, we needed to prove this so we started to collect evidence. We began to document all the violations, such as no fair trial standards and no lawyer visits during interrogations. We concluded that the system was so far from the fair trial standards and illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

DCIP collected evidence and became increasingly vocal about the injustices Palestinian children face at the hands of the Israeli occupation. It was then DCIP started receiving attacks from right-wing Zionist NGOs, which are supported by the occupation’s government.

They never challenged our narrative because the narrative is well documented according to the UN standards. They just kept lying, lying, lying, and constantly attacked us.

In 2010, they started accusing us of being a terrorist organisation. When they failed to silence us, they started targeting our partners and donors, one by one, threatening to stop their support for us or be prosecuted. But none of the donors accepted such allegations or threats, and continued working with us.

DCIP vs UK Lawyers for Israel

One of the organisations that targeted and tried to delegitimise DCIP was the “Israel” lobby group, UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI). Founded in 2011, UKLFI defends the genocidal state of Israel and says it aims to “mobilise members and supporters to use their skills pro bono to combat the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement and the delegitimisation of Israel”.

When UKLFI failed to have the desired effect, a complaint followed against DCIP’s audit company,  PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). But after a two-year investigation, the complaint was dismissed.

UKLFI targeted Defense for Children International-Palestine and led a misinformation campaign against the organisation since 2018, claiming it was a “terror linked” charity. It sought to harm the reputation of DCIP, isolate the organisation, and prevent it from receiving charitable donations.

In 2019, DCIP sued UKLFI for libel. The case was settled out of court and UKLFI was forced to apologise and issue a public retraction acknowledging that DCIP did not have links to terrorism.

We issued libel proceedings against UK Lawyers for Israel in UK courts in June 2019. Yesterday, as part of legal settlement, UKLFI recanted allegations that @DCIPalestine provides material support to any designated terror group.

Read our statement » https://t.co/biyqZgnIPX pic.twitter.com/ZCUn17oY2E

— Defense for Children (@DCIPalestine) March 10, 2020

Quzmar said:

I was not looking for money. I was looking to silence them, and this silenced them. But not long after this, we shared with Josh Paul, the case of a 13-year-old child arrested by Israeli police and subjected to sexual assault in an Israeli prison.

Josh Paul: ‘We believed [allegations] were credible’

Then, Josh Paul was a director of the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, an agency within the US Department of State responsible for US defence diplomacy, security assistance and arms transfers.

He resigned from that position in October 2023 over Biden’s arms transfers to Gaza and explained why in a candid LinkedIn post.

During an interview with CNN shortly after, Paul discussed the information DCIP shared with him.

He said:

We examined these allegations. We believed they were credible. We put them to the government of Israel, and you know what happened the next day? The IDF went into the DCIP offices and removed all their computers and declared them a terrorist entity.

Quzmar was shocked, not because the Israeli occupation had failed to open an investigation, but because his offices were raided.

He added:

There was no reason to raid the office. They broke the door, stole equipment, including computers. They just wanted to damage and destroy. I found tens of files in the stairway and they overturned the coffee machine.

I filed a complaint against them in the Israeli military court, claiming thieves in Israeli army uniform raided the office and stole equipment, on 27 July 2021. After a week they said yes, the Israeli army had raided the office because they had received information that there were materials used in the military operation against Israel, or will be used.

https://www.thecanary.co/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/WhatsApp-Video-2026-04-20-at-10.52.50.mp4

Quzmar asked to see the evidence but received nothing. Three months after this raid, DCIP was designated as a “terrorist organisation”. Although he says he never trusts the Israeli occupation’s “legal system”, Quzmar appealed the case and hired a lawyer.

He said:

There is no due process in Israel when it comes to Palestinians, and I lost a huge amount of money to pay the lawyer. The lawyer asked for discussion with the Israeli defense minister, who issued the designation against my organisation. We had one session, three years ago. There have been no other sessions or discussions, and they kept us designated.

The Israeli occupation controls everything in Palestine. It forced the banks not to work with DCIP so eventually, it could not operate, and it threatened the communities and donors that worked with the NGO. Many donors lost their presence in Palestine due to working with DCIP.

Being labelled as a terrorist organisation worried Quzmar greatly. According to “Israeli” military law, as the director of such an organisation, he could be subject to up to 20 years in prison. Meanwhile, medium-level staff could get 10 years and junior staff could be imprisoned for five years without any discussion.

Quzmar said:

Continuing the work was very high risk for me. Anyone who worked with me could be subject to prosecution, for working with a so-called terrorist, and so violating the Israeli law designating me as a terrorist. Also, a child represented by a lawyer from our side could be prosecuted because they have benefited from a terrorist organisation.

‘Today UAWC was raided, tomorrow it could be DCIP’

DCIP was forced to seriously consider the impacts such a designation would have on its organisation and staff after the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) raided the offices of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC).

The occupation designated UAWC as a terrorist organisation in December 2025. The raid, unlike any of the previous ones, was not at night but at 10am, and was accompanied by a media mission. The raid came one week after right-wing journalists from “Israel” wrote complaining that the Israeli army had done nothing about organisations in Palestine it had designated as terrorist organisations.

During the raid, UAWC staff were blindfolded, handcuffed and interrogated, kneeling down, or with their faces down on the floor for several hours. Eight were detained.

Quzmar told the Canary:

For me, in the position of managing DCIP, it got me thinking about the impact of such a raid. It was like a message to me. We had also been designated, so we’re in the same position. Today UAWC was raided, tomorrow it could be DCIP.

We had two mothers working for us, who both gave birth five or six months ago. If they were arrested, who would take care of their children? Eventually, to save the lives and security of the staff and children, and to save the assets of the organisation, we decided to end our work, and the office is now closed.

Palestine’s children need protection

Although DCIP has been forced to stop its work, Quzmar will continue to focus on children. They are now in even more need than any time previously.

He believes the situation faced by Palestinian children is unique in the world. Their rights are ignored and while the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is applied everywhere, Palestine is the exception.

These children just want to live like other children. They can’t understand why they are excluded.

I’ve tried to convince them that we’re working to hold [Israel] accountable, to stop the crimes. But we failed to convince them, in 35 years, that there is a possibility of ending this struggle. This is not because there is no political will in the international community.

There are also those who are complicit and partners in the crimes. They talk about human rights while providing Israel with more arms. What kind of human rights are these they talk about while killing people?

He argues that while the Israeli occupation is now denying many thousands of human rights activists entry into Palestine, to prevent them witnessing zionist crimes against Palestinians, Europe is still allowing Israeli occupation terrorist settlers, politicians and other criminals to travel freely.

“This is the hypocrisy we live in, the absence of political will,” Quzmar said.

Our message to the international community is to stop hypocrisy and complicity, and hold the criminals accountable in order to ensure that human rights will be respected, and people not just in Palestine but around the world, can live in peace.

Featured image via the Canary

By Charlie Jaay

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