International aid groups grapple with what Israel’s ban will mean for their work in Gaza

TEL AVIV (AP) — Israel’s decision cancel licenses This week, many of the more than three dozen humanitarian organizations are trying to grapple with what this means for aid groups’ operations in Gaza and their ability to help tens of thousands of struggling Palestinians.

37 groups It represents some of the most prominent of the more than 100 independent non-governmental organizations operating in Gaza, as well as United Nations agencies. Among the banned Doctors Without BordersNorwegian Refugee Council, Oxfam and Medical Aid to Palestinians.

Groups do everything from providing tents and water to supporting clinics and medical facilities. However, the overall impact remains unclear.

The most immediate effect of revoking the license is that Israel will no longer allow groups to bring supplies into the Gaza Strip or send international personnel to the area. Israel said all suspended groups must cease their activities by March 1.

Some groups have already been banned from bringing aid. For example, the Norwegian Refugee Council said that it was not allowed to bring materials for 10 months and that it was not allowed to distribute tents and aid brought by other groups.

Israel says banned groups make up only a small part of aid operations in Gaza.

But aid officials say they perform certain very important functions. The UN and leading NGOs said in a joint statement on Tuesday that organizations still licensed by Israel are “nowhere near the numbers needed to meet just immediate and basic needs” in Gaza.

More than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza still face a humanitarian crisis 12 weeks after the ceasefire, while the ban makes aid operations even more difficult. The UN says that although famine has been averted, more than a quarter of families still eat only one meal a day and many people are unaffordable; More than 1 million people need better tents as winter storms negatively affect the region.

Why were their licenses revoked?

Earlier this year, Israel introduced strict new registration requirements for aid agencies working in Gaza. Most importantly, it demanded that groups provide the names and personal information of local and international staff and said it would ban groups due to a long list of criticisms of Israel.

The registration process is overseen by Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and the Combatting Antisemitism, which is led by a far-right member of the ruling Likud party.

Israel says rules aim to prevent Hamas and prevented other militants from infiltrating the groups, he said, and that this happened throughout the entire process. 2 years of war. The UN and independent groups running the massive aid program in Gaza reject claims by Hamas and Israel that it has massively diverted aid supplies.

Aid agencies say they did not comply, in part because they feared giving up staff information would put them in danger. More than 500 aid workers were killed in Gaza during the war, according to the United Nations.

Israel denies targeting aid workers. But the group says Israel has been vague about how it will use the data.

The groups also said Israel was unclear about how it would use the data.

“Demanding staff lists as a condition of access to the area is an extreme overreach,” Médecins Sans Frontières, known by its French acronym MSF, said in a statement on Friday. He said Israeli officials had rejected attempts to find an alternative.

A December report on MSF by an Israeli government team recommended denying the group a license. The report primarily drew attention to the group’s statements criticizing Israel, describing its campaign in Gaza as genocide, and describing the months-long ban on food entering the region earlier this year as a “hunger tactic”. It was stated that the statements violated neutrality and amounted to “delegitimizing Israel”.

The report also repeated claims that an MSF worker killed in an Israeli airstrike in 2024 was an employee of the Islamic Jihad militant group. This means MSF “maintains links with a terrorist group”.

MSF denied the allegations on Friday and said it “will not knowingly recruit anyone involved in military activities.” He said that the statements cited by Israel only described the destruction their teams witnessed in Gaza.

The statement said, “The fault lies with those who committed these atrocities, not with those who talked about them.”

Aid groups have one week from December 31 to object to the process.

Medical services could see the biggest impact

Independent NGOs are playing a key role in supporting Gaza’s health sector, which has been devastated by two years of Israeli bombardment and supply restrictions.

MSF said Israel’s decision would have a disastrous impact on its work in Gaza, where Israel operates two field hospitals and eight primary health centres, clinics and medical posts, in addition to providing funding and international staff to six hospitals. It also runs two of Gaza’s five stabilization centers and helps children suffering from severe malnutrition.

The group says its teams have treated 100,000 trauma cases, operated on 10,000 patients and attended to a third of births in Gaza. It has 60 international staff and more than 1,200 local staff, mostly medical professionals, in the West Bank and Gaza.

Since the ceasefire began in early October, MSF has brought in about 7% of the 2,239 tonnes (2,032 metric tons) of medical supplies that Israel has allowed into Gaza, according to the UN monitoring dashboard. That makes it the largest provider of medical supplies after U.N. agencies and the Red Cross, according to its dashboard.

Medecins du Monde, another group whose license has been suspended, operates four more primary health clinics.

Overburdened Palestinian staff

Aid groups say the most immediate impact will likely be the inability to send international personnel to Gaza.

Foreign staff provide significant technical expertise and emotional support to their Palestinian counterparts.

“Having an international presence in Gaza is a morale booster for our staff who are already feeling isolated,” said Shaina Low, communications advisor for the Norwegian Refugee Council, one of the main NGOs providing shelter and fresh water to displaced people.

NRC has approximately 30 international staff working with approximately 70 Palestinians traveling in and out of Gaza.

While the operations of the 37 groups in the West Bank will likely remain open, those with offices in East Jerusalem, which Israel considers its own territory, may have to close.

Stop supplies

Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam’s policy leader on Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, said most of the 37 groups had been prevented from bringing supplies into Gaza since March.

What has changed with the revocation of the official license, he said, is that “these practices are now formalized, giving Israel complete immunity to restrict operations and shut down organizations with which it disagrees.”

He said some groups have turned to buying supplies from within Gaza rather than bringing them into Gaza, but this is slower and more expensive. Other groups delved into spare stocks, cut back on distribution, and were forced to work with broken or heavily repaired equipment because they could not bring in new ones.

Amed Khan, an American humanitarian organization that specifically donated medicine and emergency nutrition for children in Gaza, said the impact goes beyond aid groups.

It relies on NGOs to acquire and distribute supplies, but the fewer groups Israel approves of, the harder it is to find.

“It is the death of bureaucracy,” he said.