Israel to ban 37 aid groups operating in Gaza

Israel plans to ban 37 aid organisations from operating in Gaza from today unless they hand over detailed information on their Palestinian staff, despite mounting criticism from the United Nations and the European Union. Several NGOs said the new rules will have a major impact on food and medical shipments to Gaza, and humanitarian groups […]

Israel plans to ban 37 aid organisations from operating in Gaza from today unless they hand over detailed information on their Palestinian staff, despite mounting criticism from the United Nations and the European Union.

Several NGOs said the new rules will have a major impact on food and medical shipments to Gaza, and humanitarian groups warn there is already not enough aid to cover the devastated territory’s needs.

Israel’s deadline for NGOs to provide the details expires at midnight on Wednesday.

“They refuse to provide lists of their Palestinian employees because they know, just as we know, that some of them are involved in terrorism or linked to Hamas,” a spokesman for the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, Gilad Zwick, told AFP, naming 37 NGOs that had so far failed to meet the new requirements.

“I highly doubt that what they haven’t done for 10 months, they will suddenly do in less than 12 hours,” Zwick said. “We certainly won’t accept any cooperation that is just for show, simply to get an extension.”

For its part, Hamas, the armed Palestinian group which still controls part of Gaza, branded the Israeli decision “criminal behaviour” and urged the United Nations and broader international community to condemn it.

Israel says the new regulation aims to prevent bodies it accuses of supporting terrorism from operating in the Palestinian territories.

A fragile ceasefire has been in place in Gaza since October, following a deadly war waged by Israel in response to Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israeli territory on October 7, 2023.

On Tuesday, Israel specified that “acts of de-legitimising Israel” or denial of events surrounding Hamas’s October 7 attack would be “grounds for licence withdrawal”.

Israel has singled out international medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF), alleging that it had two employees who were members of Palestinian militant groups Islamic Jihad and Hamas.

Apart from MSF, some of the 37 NGOs to be hit with the ban are the Norwegian Refugee Council, World Vision International, CARE and Oxfam, according to the list given by Zwick.