Dozens of aid groups said they have petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court to allow them to keep operating in Gaza, warning of dire consequences if new rules obliging them to name staff force shutdowns.
Thirty-seven international organisations including medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres and the Norwegian Refugee Council would have to shutter their operations within days after Israel ordered them at the end of December to stop work in Gaza and the occupied West Bank within 60 days, unless they meet new rules including providing employee details.
The aid groups say sharing such staff information could pose a safety risk. Hundreds of aid workers have been killed or injured during the war in Gaza.
Israel has previously said the registrations were meant to prevent diversions of aid by Palestinian armed groups. Aid agencies dispute that substantial aid has been diverted.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
Seventeen NGOs and the Association of International Development Agencies filed a joint legal petition to the Israeli High Court of Justice on Sunday seeking an urgent suspension of the decision, warning of devastating humanitarian consequences if they cannot operate, according to a statement by the groups.
The petition calls for the Israeli government to remove the requirement for aid groups to submit staff names, and to allow deregistered NGOs to keep operating in the interim, Yotam Ben-Hillel, an Israeli attorney who filed the appeal, told reporters via video link.
Some of the 37 groups ordered to close operate specialised services like field hospitals, aid officials say.
A UN-led co-ordination body warned that those bodies still allowed to operate could meet only a fraction of the required humanitarian response in the devastated Gaza Strip, where homelessness and hunger remain rife.
Anne-Claire Yaeesh from the NGO Humanity and Inclusion said its foreign staff who were meant to provide education on the risks of unexploded ordnance had to leave Gaza last week and that they cannot get new staff because the group is deregistered.
The US will provide on-site passport services this week in a settlement in the West Bank, marking the first time American consular officials have offered such services to settlers in the occupied territory, US officials said yesterday.
Most of the world considers Israel’s West Bank settlements illegal under international law relating to military occupations. Israel disputes that the settlements are illegal, and many on the Israeli right advocate annexing the West Bank.
Palestinians have long sought the West Bank for a future independent state, alongside Gaza and East Jerusalem.
This month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing cabinet approved measures making it easier for settlers to seize Palestinian land.
US President Donald Trump, a staunch supporter of Israel, has said he opposes Israeli annexation of the West Bank. But his administration has not taken any measures to halt settlement activity, which rights groups say has risen since he took office last year.
In a post on X, the US Embassy in Jerusalem said that as part of efforts to reach all Americans abroad, “consular officers will be providing routine passport services in Efrat on Friday, February 27,” referring to a settlement south of the Palestinian city of Bethlehem.
The Embassy said it would plan similar on-site services in the Palestinian West Bank city of Ramallah, in the settlement of Beitar Illit near Bethlehem, and in cities within Israel such as Haifa.
The US offers passport and consular services at its Embassy in Jerusalem as well as at a Tel Aviv branch office. The number of dual American-Israeli nationals living in the West Bank is estimated to be in the tens of thousands.
Asked for comment, an embassy spokesperson said: “This is the first time we have provided consular services to a settlement in the West Bank.” The spokesperson said similar services were being offered to American-Palestinian dual nationals in the West Bank.
Last week, Israel’s cabinet approved measures to tighten the country’s control over the West Bank and make it easier for settlers to buy land, a move Palestinians called a “de facto annexation”. Much of the West Bank is under Israeli military control, with limited Palestinian self-rule in some areas run by the Western-backed Palestinian Authority.
Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, which has a large voter base in the settlements, includes many members who want Israel to annex the West Bank, land captured in the 1967 Middle East war to which Israel cites biblical and historical ties.
Efrat, the Jewish settlement where American consular officials will provide passport services on Friday, is home to many American immigrants. The US Embassy said it did not have data on the number of Americans living there.
More than 500,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank, home to three million Palestinians. Most settlements are small towns surrounded by fences and guarded by Israeli soldiers.
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