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Palestinian Foreign Ministry condemns Israel’s move to bar aid groups from Gaza
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates has issued a statement in which it “strongly condemns” Israel’s move to issue new registration rules for relief agencies that could cut off life-saving assistance for hundreds of thousands in Gaza.
“Israel has no sovereignty over the occupied Palestinian territory, including Jerusalem,” the ministry said, adding that the work of relief agencies is welcomed by Palestinians.
The ministry said preventing those organisations from operating constitutes a breach of international law, including an advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) stating that Israel has an obligation to ensure the “basic needs” of the population in Gaza are met.
“No entity has the right to stop their services or obstruct their work,” the ministry said. “Israel does not want any witnesses to its crimes, nor does it want institutions that support the Palestinian people and prevent Israel from implementing its colonial project aimed at destroying the lives of the Palestinian people.”
Gaza NGOs urge Israel to reconsider ban on ‘live-saving’ services
A consortium of international and local NGOs has called on Israel to reconsider its suspension of 37 organisations.
The Humanitarian Country Team, which coordinates decisions across UN agencies and NGOs working in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, said it was “urging the Israeli authorities to reconsider” the move.
International NGOs, the group said, “are an essential part of the life-saving humanitarian operation” in the occupied Palestinian territory.
A Palestinian mother takes care of the babies as her family of six struggles to survive in a worn-out tent under harsh winter conditions in the Yarmouk camp in Gaza City, December 29
Banned aid groups ‘not met with good faith’ from Israel: NRC
Shaina Low, communications adviser for the newly suspended Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), says Israel’s suspension of international NGOs “doesn’t come as a surprise to us”.
“It falls in line with what we’ve seen over the last two-plus years of Israeli authorities continually obstructing the operations of humanitarian aid organisations – impartial, independent, neutral, principled humanitarian agencies,” Low told Washington, DC-based National Public Radio (NPR).
NRC, which has worked in Gaza since 2009, will continue on-the-ground operations “as best as we can”, Low said. But the suspension means the organisation can no longer bring international staff to Gaza, removing a critical “extra layer of support, an extra layer of protection” for Palestinian NRC workers trying to survive the genocidal war.
Before the suspension, Low said, NRC explained to Israel that it could not supply it with a list of its national staff, both to protect their safety and to comply with European Union data protection laws.
The organisation worked with diplomats and donors “to try and engage the Israeli authorities to productively find an alternative solution … But we were not met with good faith from the Israeli authorities. We were not given any alternatives, and so this is where we are now,” Low said.
Israel’s NGO ban intends to ‘disappear’ Palestinians, breaches international law
Neve Gordon, professor of international and human rights law at Queen Mary University of London, has told Al Jazeera that Israel’s ban on aid groups is a way of “strangling” Palestinians while also breaking international law.
“This is a different kind of strategy of clamping down on the Palestinians, strangling them, hoping that they will disappear, that they will want to leave the Gaza Strip,” Gordon said.
International law requires that an occupying power must provide for civilians, Gordon said, making Israel’s latest move a “grave” violation.
“What we have seen in the past two years – and is still going on now – is the use of starvation as a method of war, by depriving the population of objects that are indispensable to their survival,” he said. “This is not something random, this is not something that is based on a certain intelligence.”
