Even after Israel delayed a compliance deadline for international NGOs working in Gaza, aid groups based in Geneva and beyond warn their future operations in the enclave remain precarious amid tightening restrictions and dire conditions on the ground.

At health clinics across the Gaza Strip, around 100 social workers, nurses and physios wearing blue sleeveless vests emblazoned with Humanity and Inclusion’s (HI) hand logo on their backs work around the clock, rehabilitating victims of war and fitting hundreds of amputees with prosthetics.

The aid group has been operating in the Palestinian territories since 1996, where it also provides psychosocial support and education on staying safe from bombings and unexploded munitions. However, strict Israeli rules introduced in March, requiring international aid groups to hand over sensitive information, including lists of their donors and Palestinian staff, are now threatening to shut down HI’s work, along with that of other organisations that fail to comply.

Humanitarians Geneva Solutions spoke to – some on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals – said the latest bureaucratic measures added pressure to an already heavily curtailed aid system struggling to meet the needs of two million Palestinians in Gaza.

Earlier this month, Israel postponed a 9 September deadline for NGOs to meet the new requirements or risk being delisted by the end of the year, bringing some temporary relief to organisations and the governments of their home countries, amid escalating tensions between Israel and western nations over the ongoing war in Gaza.

But it’s done little to resolve the underlying problems, HI’s Palestine country director, Anne-Claire Yaeesh, told Geneva Solutions. “Instead, it perpetuates an unstable and uncertain situation. It leaves humanitarian actors operating in limbo, unable to plan or implement predictable, sustained responses,” she said.

Until further notice

With NGOs now given until the end of the year to comply, many have submitted partially completed applications, hoping there will be some room for compromise on the most contentious parts – namely, handing over lists of all foreign and Palestinian staff and their personal details. Other requirements include sharing financial documents, donor details, as well as lists of partners they work with, facilities, equipment and information on current and past humanitarian activities.

Israel’s Ministry for Diaspora Affairs, which oversees the process, stressed that any organisation failing to register according to the new requirements by the new deadline “will have its registration revoked”, and foreign employees will receive a negative recommendation, likely resulting in denied entry into Israel.

Organisations can also have their permits denied or revoked for a vast number of reasons, including being perceived by Israel to promote “delegitimising campaigns”, for employing anyone who has called for a boycott of Israel in the past seven years, or “for expressing support for legal proceedings against Israeli citizens in a foreign country or before an international tribunal”.

In an emailed statement, Cogat, the Israeli military body in charge of coordinating aid, said the registration process was based on “clear professional and security criteria” and was intended to prevent “the infiltration of terrorist elements into the aid mechanism”.

However, NGOs fear that handing over lists and other sensitive information about staff and their families to Israel could put them in danger, in a context where humanitarian and healthcare workers have come under increasing attack.

“They pose a real ethical and legal dilemma,” the head of one organisation with offices in Geneva told Geneva Solutions. Giving up information on staff goes against humanitarian principles of prioritising the safety of individuals. But refusing to do so would jeopardise their work providing essential services to thousands of people, the humanitarian official stressed. For most international aid groups, sharing personal information would also violate the data protection laws they are bound to in their home countries.

The director of another aid group, which is still waiting to receive a response after submitting its application for the third time, said handing over staff details was a red line they would not cross. “We are very, very concerned. This is a very fragile situation. If the Israeli authorities do not want us to work in Gaza, then they have power over us to make that happen,” they said.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has similarly submitted its registration without listing Palestinian employees “due to our concerns on how this list might be used in this current context of genocide”, a spokesperson confirmed by email. The Geneva-based organisation has been vocal alongside other aid groups in urging governments to intervene after a UN-backed commission concluded for the first time that Israel was committing genocide in the territory – accusations that Israel has rejected.

“We are trying to engage with the Israeli authorities to understand their concerns and to find a solution that enables us to continue to provide essential services to people without compromising our safety concerns, duty towards our staff or ways of working,” the spokesperson added.

A country manager of a medium-sized humanitarian organisation that has so far not applied said that the real debate for most international NGOs was to what extent they can continue operations in Gaza and the West Bank without going through the new registration process. For those who employ mainly local staff and rely less on international visas or on bringing goods into Gaza, this may be feasible. “However, if you need coordination with Cogat, then you have no choice.”

Restrictions on NGOs

Aid groups view the re-registration process as another move by Israel to silence and control international NGOs. On 13 August, more than 100 NGOs, including MSF and HI, called on Israel to end its “weaponisation of aid”, with some 29 countries, including Switzerland and the United Kingdom, issuing a statement the same week urging Israel to allow aid actors to work and warning against the politicisation of aid.

It comes as the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a private Israel-US-backed aid group with no prior experience in humanitarian operations, has been given a near monopoly over food distribution in Gaza since May, when Israel partially lifted an 11-week blockade on aid entering the territory. Around 400 food distribution points previously operated by the UN and aid groups were reduced to just four militarised sites overseen by the group, where attacks on people seeking aid have dramatically escalated, with hundreds reported killed near the sites since they began.

Humanitarian groups that co-signed the letter said that since March, almost none of them had been allowed to deliver life-saving supplies. Instead, they were increasingly being told “they are not authorised to deliver aid”, with over 60 requests denied in July alone. “This obstruction has left millions of dollars’ worth of food, medicine, water and shelter items stranded in warehouses across Jordan and Egypt, while Palestinians are being starved,” the letter said.

HI confirmed that it has around CHF 280,000 worth of goods, including prosthetics and other medical equipment, stuck at the border for several months now. “The latest denial we received stated that we are not authorised at this stage to bring in aid, which is against this supposed grace period that we were supposed to have until 9 September,” Yaeesh added.

Cogat denies that it is restricting aid, saying the delay in entry “occurs only when organisations choose not to meet the basic security requirements intended to prevent Hamas’s involvement”.

It claimed in August that approximately 300 humanitarian aid trucks were entering Gaza every day through the 20 organisations registered under the new mechanism – far less than the 500-600 trucks the UN estimates are required to meet basic needs.

“Instead of opposing the process and issuing public statements, we call on all international organisations wishing to bring aid into the Gaza Strip – especially those that signed the statement – to act with transparency, complete the registration, and ensure that the aid reaches the residents and not Hamas,” Cogat said in an emailed statement to Geneva Solutions.

Humanitarian space squeezed

In the past weeks, Israel has intensified attacks after launching a ground offensive in Gaza City it says is intended to eliminate Hamas after its deadly 7 October 2023 attack. The nearly two-year military campaign has killed more than 65,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities, caused repeated displacement, acute malnutrition and confirmed famine in certain areas, and reduced much of the enclave to rubble.

The UN’s Office of Coordination and Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says that at least 543 aid workers have been killed since 7 October 2023, including three in the last week. Humanitarian movements remain difficult, especially from southern to northern Gaza, with missions approved by Israeli authorities still taking hours to complete.

Sam Rose, acting director of UNRWA affairs in Gaza, warned recently in Geneva: “The humanitarian space is being squeezed. We face physical attacks and are constantly being challenged with misinformation, attempting to undermine the credibility of the UN system and our response.”

The UN’s Palestinian aid agency, which Israel branded a terrorist organisation in January and banned from government contact, still has 12,000 Palestinian personnel providing assistance in Gaza.

Yaeesh called for “urgent and substantive engagement” with Israeli authorities so that aid groups could be allowed to continue their work. “Resolving the blockage of the Palestinian staff list is a prerequisite for enabling humanitarian organisations to resume operations at scale,” she said. “Without this, the extension risks being merely symbolic rather than a concrete step toward addressing humanitarian needs.”