Israel appears set to ban almost 40 international humanitarian organisations from operating in Gaza and the West Bank amid a critical humanitarian crisis in the middle of winter.
In the worst-case scenario, some say the departure of the NGOs from Gaza may lead to more Palestinians dying of exposure after floods killed six children this month.
Though famine warnings have been lifted since a ceasefire took effect in October, 77 per cent of Gazans face acute levels of food insecurity, according to a global hunger monitor, while a quarter of families live on one meal a day. Weak bodies are less likely to resist exposure to the cold and rain.
“The impact of the deregistration would be across all sectors: nutrition, food security, shelter and health,” Danish Refugee Council advocacy co-ordinator Louise Le Bret told The National.
Many NGOs have refused to comply with new Israeli rules demanding details of Palestinian staff. Charities say sharing data with a warring party – Israel – would breach duty of care and humanitarian principles. Israel says Palestinian NGO workers have in the past been found to be members of extremist groups.
The tug-of-war has become the latest battle of narratives between Israel and a large part of the international humanitarian community over Gaza.
The matter is highly sensitive for NGOs, some of which declined to provide comment to The National, saying they fear endangering their staff or running afoul of Israeli authorities.
They have rejected Israeli accusations of hiding supposed links with terrorist groups and say they check the background of all their staff. Other criteria have been put forward by Israeli authorities, including promoting "delegitimization campaigns” against Israel.
'Huge impact'
On Friday, the head of the UN agency for humanitarian aid warned the departure of the charities from Gaza would have a “huge impact” on sustaining the pace of aid required by the peace plan.
Tom Fletcher, who leads the Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said: “These are our essential allies and partners in the efforts to get massive amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza, which is so badly needed.
“We’ve hugely scaled up in the last 60 days since that ceasefire, since that Sharm El Sheikh deal," he told the BBC. "We need crossings open. We need those NGO partners allowed to work at our side.”
Mr Fletcher urged the Israeli government to lift the restrictions, and added that humanitarian access was a “key” aspect of the US-led peace plan.
“Let’s save as many lives as we can together. Let's do this as a humanitarian community. Lift the restrictions and we will deliver,” he said. “We’re getting so much more aid every day than we did before the deal. We need rebuild a sense of hope that we can get back to a two-state solution.”
Obstruction of aid
On December 30, 37 international charities, including the Danish Refugee Council, received a letter from Israeli authorities telling them they had 60 days to comply with the new rules or leave Gaza.
Others NGOs that received this warning include Doctors Without Border (MSF) and the Vatican-headquartered Caritas. Israel has minimised their importance, arguing that their contribution only amounted to one per cent of the aid delivered to Gaza.
This appears to contradict a joint statement issued on Friday by 53 charities, in which they said that international NGOs deliver “more than half of all food assistance in Gaza, run or support 60 per cent of field hospitals, implement nearly three-quarters of shelter and non-food item activities, and provide all treatment for children with severe acute malnutrition”.
“If registrations are allowed to lapse, the Israeli government will obstruct humanitarian assistance at scale,” the charities said.
Israel's Foreign Ministry has publicly accused the 37 NGOs of suspicious behaviour. “What are they hiding?” it wrote on social media on Thursday. It said that 23 international NGOs, mostly from the US, had been approved to work in Gaza. “NGOs must be transparent about their personnel and funding sources,” it added.
Groups such as Hamas try to exploit the aid that enters Gaza to strengthen their operations, Cogat, the Israeli military agency that co-ordinates aid, told The National.
“Instead of opposing the process and issuing statements, we call on all international organisations that wish to introduce aid into the Gaza Strip to act transparently, complete the registration process, and ensure that the assistance reaches the residents and not Hamas,” it said.
The Multifaith Alliance, a US-headquartered NGO active in Gaza since 2024, said that abiding with strict compliance rules was an unsurprising demand due to the enclave being a high-risk area for operations. The organisation was among the 23 charities to have received Israel's approval.
It has been sending 50 to 100 lorries a day to Gaza, mostly carrying food aid procured in Israel, its chief executive Shadi Martini said. That is a significant proportion of the 600 to 800 lorries Cogat says cross into the enclave each day.
'Stretched thin'
"All our staff are already vetted from our side, and everyone knew that they are going to be vetted also by the Israeli authority for our work there," Mr Martini told The National. "So it was not something that was strange to us or strange to our employees. All of them are locals and Palestinian."
“It took several months of providing information and going back and forth with the authorities in Israel, but at the end of the day, we got the registration. The effect on organisations like ours is that there is going to be more demand for our aid. We're already stretched thin.”
The Multifaith Alliance started its activities in 2016, delivering aid from Israel to the Syrian city of Quneitra during the Syrian civil war, under Israel's so-called good neighbour policy. The two countries have not signed a peace agreement since Israel was founded in 1948, and borders are closed.
Mr Martini added that he was unsure what the effects of the departure of 37 charities from Gaza would be. “There were a couple of storms recently,” he said. “But organisations and people are reacting. It's not like there's not going to be aid.”
It remains an open question whether the two dozen NGOs that have received Israeli approval will be able to increase their activities to match current operations alongside the UN. Overall, international humanitarian groups deliver aid worth $1 billion a year to Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
“If they're not able to scale up, that would ultimately lead to a very complicated situation and to further death in the Gaza Strip,” Ms Le Bret said. Gazans need “tents, mattresses, blankets, because of the weather and the heavy rain right now in the Gaza Strip”.
Another point that remains unclear is whether NGOs can operate in the occupied Palestinian territories without Israeli authorisation. While theoretically a Palestinian authorisation should be enough, it appears technically difficult as it would entail not operating from Israeli territory, despite border crossings to Jordan and Egypt remaining closed.
NGOs have been trying to get the attention of US President Donald Trump, according to Ms Le Bret, particularly before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington this week.
But so far, the White House has remained quiet on the matter. The US was missing from a joint statement on Gaza signed by 10 western states expressing “serious concern” over Israel's new rules – as was Germany, Israel's largest European ally.
"The German government is actively working through various channels to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza," a source at the German foreign office said. "Foreign Minister [Johann] Wadephul has been in close contact with Israel’s Foreign Minister [Gideon] Saar over the past few days regarding this and other matters, including phone calls."
The EU, the biggest aid donor to Palestinians, says it has been watching developments closely, though its diplomatic influence on Israel is limited as the bloc's 27 states are divided on foreign policy.
EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas said in September that she had “consistently raised the restrictive requirements for international NGOs to register” in talks with Mr Saar.
A European Commission representative told The National that “Israel’s move to revoke NGO licences risks severely impacting Gaza aid operations. Shelter, health services, food, nutrition, assistance and mine clearance are largely dependent on NGOs. The EU therefore calls on Israel to allow NGOs to continue their vital operations.”
A lot can happen during the two-month window set by Israel, but both sides appear committed to their arguments. “We're holding the line: we will not share the list of our Palestinian staff for security and safety reasons,” Ms Le Bret said.
