Israel will shut down dozens of aid groups in Gaza starting on New Year’s Day

Shaina Low hoped to see aid trucks pouring into Gaza by 2026. Instead, he says, millions of dollars worth of goods will sit in warehouses while Palestinians suffer.

Low is a spokesperson for the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), one of the more than a dozen humanitarian organizations that Israel has blockaded in the Gaza Strip, since Thursday, for failing to comply with the new registration rules.

Israel says the laws are aimed at preventing Hamas and other militants from accessing aid organizations. But opposition groups say the rules will have dire consequences for an already existing region facing deadly floods as it tries to rebuild in just a few months fragile suspension.

“The thing that hurts us the most as aid workers is to know that we have resources available from outside, and that we can’t just reach people with what we have because Israel has been continuing, for more than two years, to prevent us from delivering our goods, preventing us from going up, preventing us from reaching communities in need,” said Low. As It Happened guest Paul Hunter.

“So we see this news about registration as another element of that disruption.”

Controversial new registration rules

Israel announced new laws earlier this year requiring aid organizations to register the names of their workers and provide information about funding and operations in order to continue working in Gaza.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry said more than 30 groups – about 15 percent of organizations operating in Gaza – failed to comply and would be suspended.

That includes Doctors Without Borders, World Vision International, and several regional arms of Oxfam, including Oxfam Quebec.

“The message is clear: humanitarian aid is welcome – the exploitation of humanitarian aid by terrorists is unacceptable,” said Foreign Minister Amichai Chikli.

Asked why the NRC doesn’t just give Israel the information it wants, Low says it’s not that simple.

Providing a list of names would violate privacy laws in several European countries where the organization operates, he said. In addition, he says it will put NRC staff at risk.

“Israel is part of the conflict. And not only is it part of the conflict, but it has killed hundreds of aid workers in Gaza,” he said. Therefore, for us, it is dangerous to give them the names of our employees.

The United Nations reported that in October at least 562 aid workers killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023.

“There has never been any evidence that the NRC or any of these organizations have links with armed groups,” he said.

“We see this as part of a campaign to legitimize legitimate actors who have been operating in the Palestinian territories for decades.”

When announcing the closure, Israel named Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French name Medecins Sans Frontières (MSF), accusing the charity of failing to respond to Israeli allegations that some of its workers are affiliated with Hamas or Islamic Jihad.

“MSF will never knowingly recruit people who engage in military activities,” the statement said.

MSF says Israel’s decision will have a negative impact on its work in Gaza, where it supports about 20 percent of hospital beds and a third of births.

The new rules also include ideological requirements, including for boycott organizations that have called for boycotts of Israel, which were banned by Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks on Israel, or expressed support for any international court cases against Israeli soldiers or leaders.

What does banning really mean?

The decision not to renew aid groups’ licenses means that offices in Israel and East Jerusalem will close, and the organizations will not be able to send international staff or aid to Gaza.

But many groups, including the NCR, have said they will continue to run programs inside Gaza with local workers.

Israel’s defense agency that oversees humanitarian aid to Gaza, COGAT, said the organizations on the list contribute less than 1 percent of total aid to the Gaza Strip, and that aid will continue to flow to more than 20 organizations that have received permits to continue operating.

But affected groups say the timing of the ban, in the middle of Gaza’s flood-ravaged winter, will have deadly consequences.

“We have hundreds of thousands of people living in overcrowded evacuation centers where there’s open sewage, where there’s garbage and debris piling up, and there’s nowhere for the floodwater to go except people’s tents,” Low said.

According to the United Nations, 1.9 million people – 90 percent of the population – were displaced from Gaza in the past two years.

Since January, Israel has also closed the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the top UN agency working with the Palestinians, accusing it of being infiltrated by Hamas. The UN denies this.

Canada issued a joint statement with several other countries on Tuesday condemning the “restrictive new demands,” and calling on the country to allow NGOs and UN partners to work in Gaza.

“[We] We have expressed grave concern about the further deterioration of the aid situation in Gaza, which remains a disaster,” you read the statement from the foreign ministers of Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

Low says it’s time for the international community to do “more than just issue statements of condemnation.”

“Israel as a sovereign power has a responsibility to provide the basic needs of people under its control or to help people,” he said.

“What we have seen over and over again in the last two years is that Israel is failing to meet those obligations, and yet we have seen very little action from states to take responsibility for those violations.”