Israel bars 37 agencies from the strip
‘When aid stops, how am I supposed to survive?’ asks 35-year-old Abdul-Karim Al-Shawwa, sole caregiver for his elderly parents and the children of his brother, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike last August while attempting to get flour at an aid centre.
Israel has cancelled the licences of 37 international aid organisations operating in Gaza, saying they failed to meet new requirements. Israeli rights groups, including B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, said the requirements ‘violate core humanitarian principles of independence and neutrality.’
Groups affected include Oxfam, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders and the International Rescue Committee. Under the Trump peace deal, international agencies were meant to replace the notorious US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). The foundation’s distribution of food saw gunmen (Israeli army and others) shoot into desperate crowds.
After the peace deal GHF was obliged to leave. It is now making moves to return. The ban also means stopping banking transfers through the Bank of Palestine, the only body authorised to make transfers in Gaza. Without these transfers, aid organisations are unable to pay for desalination plants, operate water trucks, or provide even minimal local assistance.
Combined with limited health services, inadequate water supplies, and poor sanitation, UNICEF says that all 320,000 children under the age of five are still at risk of acute malnutrition.
