Omar Shakir, the Israel-Palestine director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), and assistant researcher Milena Ansari have resigned in protest after the organisation blocked a report they said labelled Israel's denial of Palestinian refugees' right of return a "crime against humanity.”
A report by Jewish Currents published on Tuesday said they have obtained the resignation letters of Shakir and Ansari, where Shakir wrote that the HRW leadership's decision broke from standard review processes and reflected fear of political backlash rather than legal or factual concerns.
"I have lost my faith in the integrity of how we do our work and our commitment to principled reporting on the facts and application of the law," Shakir said, according to the report.
Decades of crimes documented
The unpublished 33-page report documented the experiences of Palestinians displaced from Gaza, the occupied West Bank and refugee communities in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, connecting decades of denied return to prosecutable crimes under international law.
HRW’s leadership claimed that the report raised "complex and consequential issues" and that further analysis was needed before publication.
But Shakir said on the US social media company X’s platform that "the report was finalised after 7 months in review & signed off on by the MENA division, five different specialists, the Programme Office & the Law & Policy Office."
"It was coded to the website & translated, a press release & Q/A were drafted & vetted & partners briefed. Hardly a rush," he said.
Shakir and Ansari said attempts to narrow the report's scope to recent displacements undermined its legal argument and silenced the voices of generations of refugees.
Over 200 HRW staff protested the delay, warning it could damage the organisation's credibility.
The resignations come as HRW's new executive director, Philippe Bolopion, begins his tenure amid heightened scrutiny of the group's Israel-Palestine work.
