JERUSALEM: New Israeli legislation regulating foreign aid groups has been increasingly used to deny their requests to bring supplies into Gaza, according to a joint letter signed by more than 100 groups published Thursday.
Ties between foreign-backed aid groups and the Israeli government have long been beset by tensions, with officials often complaining the organizations are biased.
The rocky relations have only gotten more strained in the wake of Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel in October 2023.
“Israeli authorities have rejected requests from dozens of NGOs to bring in lifesaving goods, citing that these organizations are ‘not authorized to deliver aid’,” the joint statement reads.
According to the letter, whose signatories include Oxfam and Doctors Without Borders (MSF), at least 60 requests to bring aid into Gaza were rejected in July alone.
In March, Israel’s government approved a new set of rules for foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working with Palestinians.
The law updates the framework for how aid groups must register to maintain their status within Israel, along with provisions that outline how their applications can be denied or registration revoked.
Registration can be rejected if Israeli authorities deem that a group denies the democratic character of Israel or “promotes delegitimization campaigns” against the country.
“Unfortunately, many aid organizations serve as a cover for hostile and sometimes violent activity,” Israel’s Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli told AFP.
“Organizations that have no connection to hostile or violent activity and no ties to the boycott movement will be granted permission to operate,” added Chikli, whose ministry directed an effort to produce the new guideline.
Aid groups say, however, that the new rules are leaving Gazans without help.
“Our mandate is to save lives, but due to the registration restrictions civilians are being left without the food, medicine and protection they urgently need,” said Jolien Veldwijk, director of the charity CARE in the Palestinian territories.
Veldwijk said that CARE has not been able to deliver any aid to Gaza since Israel imposed a full blockade on the Palestinian territory in March, despite partially easing it in May.
Israel has long accused Hamas of stealing aid entering the Strip, and since May, the government has relied on the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to manage food distribution centers.
According to Gaza’s civil defense agency, its operations have been frequently marred by chaos as thousands of Gazans have scrambled each day to approach its hubs, where some have been shot, including by Israeli soldiers.
Foreign NGOs say new Israeli rules keep them from delivering Gaza aid
https://arab.news/6pc35
Foreign NGOs say new Israeli rules keep them from delivering Gaza aid
- “Israeli authorities have rejected requests from dozens of NGOs to bring in lifesaving goods, citing that these organizations are ‘not authorized to deliver aid’,” the joint statement reads
US will prevent Iranian nuclear bomb ‘one way or the other’
- Implicit threat of miitary action but Tehran remains optimistic of deal
TEHRAN, PARIS: The US will prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons “one way or the other,” US Energy Secretary Chris Wright warned on Wednesday.
US President Donald Trump “believes firmly we cannot have a nuclear-armed Iran,” Wright said as the International Energy Agency met in Paris. “They’ve been very clear about what they would do with nuclear weapons. It’s entirely unacceptable.
“So one way or the other, we are going to end, deter Iran’s march toward a nuclear weapon.”
Despite the implicit threat of military action, which Trump has said is not off the table amid a massive increase in US military forces in the region, Iranian officials remain optimistic that an agreement can be reached after talks in Geneva on Tuesday that Tehran described as “constructive.”
In a call with Rafael Grossi, head of the UN nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran said was drafting a framework for future talks with Washington. Iran’s focus was on drafting an initial and coherent framework to advance talks with the US, he said. However, US Vice President J.D. Vance said Tehran had not yet acknowledged all of Washington’s red lines.
Earlier on Wednesday Reza Najafi, Iran’s permanent representative to the UN nuclear agency in Vienna, met Grossi and the ambassadors of China and Russia “to exchange views” on the forthcoming session of the agency's board of governors and “developments related to Iran’s nuclear program,” Iran’s mission in Vienna said.
Tehran has suspended some cooperation with the agency and restricted the watchdog's inspectors from accessing sites bombed by Israel and the US during a 12-day war in June. It accuses the UN body of bias and of failing to condemn the strikes.
