TEL AVIV (AP) — Israel’s decision this week to revoke the licenses of more than three dozen humanitarian organizations has aid groups scrambling to grapple with what it means for their operations in Gaza and their ability to help tens of thousands of embattled Palestinians.
The 37 groups represent some of the most prominent of the more than 100 independent NGOs working in Gaza with United Nations agencies. Banned organizations include Doctors Without Borders, the Norwegian Refugee Council, Oxfam and Palestinian Medical Aid.
These organizations do everything from providing tents and water to supporting clinics and medical facilities. However, the overall impact remains unclear.
The most immediate impact of revoking the licenses is that Israel will no longer allow these organizations to bring supplies into the Gaza Strip or send international staff into the territory. Israel said all suspended groups must cease their activities by March 1.
Some groups have been banned from providing aid. For example, the Norwegian Refugee Council said it has not been allowed to deliver supplies for 10 consecutive months and can only distribute tents and aid brought by other groups.
Israel says banned groups make up only a small part of aid operations in Gaza.
But aid officials say they perform important, specific functions. The United Nations and major NGOs said in a joint statement on Tuesday that those still licensed by Israel were “far from sufficient to meet Gaza’s immediate and basic needs.”
The ban further puts pressure on aid operations as more than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza still face a humanitarian crisis despite a ceasefire that has lasted more than 12 weeks. The United Nations says that while famine has been averted, more than a quarter of households still live on just one meal a day and food prices remain out of reach for many; more than a million people need better tents as winter storms sweep through the region.
Why were their licenses revoked?
Earlier this year, Israel imposed strict new registration requirements for aid agencies working in Gaza. Most notably, it requires groups to provide the names and personal details of local and international staff and says it will ban groups that make a long list of criticisms of Israel.
The registration process is overseen by Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Anti-Semitism, which is led by far-right members of the ruling Likud party.
Israel says the rules are intended to prevent Hamas and other militants from infiltrating the groups, which it says has been happening during the two years of war. The United Nations and independent groups leading Gaza’s massive aid package deny Hamas’s accusations of massive aid diversions and Israel’s claims.
Aid groups say they have not complied, in part because they fear handing over employee information could compromise their safety. According to the United Nations, more than 500 aid workers have been killed during the war in Gaza.
Israel denies targeting aid workers. But the group said Israel has been vague about how it will use the data.
The groups also said Israel was vague about how it would use the data.
“Requiring staff to use a list as a condition of entry to the territory is an outrageous overreach,” Doctors Without Borders, known by its French abbreviation MSF, said on Friday. Israeli officials allegedly rejected attempts to find an alternative.
An Israeli government panel’s MSF report released in December recommended denying the organization’s license. It mainly pointed to the group’s criticism of Israel, including calling its actions in Gaza genocide and its months-long ban on food entering the territory earlier this year as a “starvation tactic.” The statement said these remarks violated neutrality and constituted “Israel’s loss of legitimacy.”
The report also reiterated that an MSF employee killed in an Israeli airstrike in 2024 was an operative of the Islamic Jihad militant group. The report said this showed that Médecins Sans Frontières “maintains links with terrorist organizations.”
Médecins Sans Frontières denied the accusations on Friday, saying it would “never knowingly employ anyone involved in military activities”. It said its statement cited by Israel merely described the devastation its team had witnessed in Gaza.
“The fault lies with those who committed these atrocities, not those who spoke about them,” it said.
Aid groups have one week from December 31 to appeal the process.
Medical services may be most affected
Independent NGOs play an important role in supporting Gaza’s health sector, which has been devastated by two years of Israeli bombing and supply restrictions.
Médecins Sans Frontières said Israel’s decision would have a catastrophic impact on its work in Gaza, where it provides funding and international staff to six hospitals and operates two field hospitals and eight primary health centres, clinics and medical points. It also operates two of Gaza’s five stabilization centers, helping severely malnourished children.
The organization says its teams have treated 100,000 trauma cases, performed surgeries on 10,000 patients and handled one-third of Gaza’s births. The company has 60 international staff and more than 1,200 local staff in the West Bank and Gaza, the majority of whom are medical professionals.
Doctors Without Borders has brought in about 7% of the 2,239 tons (2,032 metric tons) of medical supplies that Israel has allowed into Gaza since the ceasefire began in early October, according to a U.N. tracking dashboard. That makes it the largest supplier of medical supplies after United Nations agencies and the Red Cross, the dashboard shows.
Doctors Worldwide, another organization whose license was revoked, also operates four other primary health clinics.
Palestinian staff are overburdened
Aid groups say the most immediate impact may be the inability to send international staff into Gaza.
Expatriate staff provide critical technical expertise and emotional support to Palestinian colleagues.
“Having an international presence in Gaza can boost the morale of our staff who already feel isolated,” said Shaina Low, communications adviser for the Norwegian Refugee Council, one of the leading NGOs providing shelter supplies and fresh water to displaced people.
The NRC has about 30 international staff who rotate in and out of Gaza along with about 70 Palestinians.
While any operations of the 37 organizations in the West Bank may remain open, those with offices in East Jerusalem, which Israel considers its territory, may have to close.
Stop supply
Many of the 37 organizations have been blocked from delivering supplies to Gaza since March, said Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam’s head of policy for Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
The change brought about by the formal revocation of the license is that “these practices are now formalized, allowing Israel to restrict movement with complete impunity and shut out organizations with which it disagrees,” she said.
She said some groups have turned to buying supplies inside Gaza rather than importing them, but that is slower and more costly. Other groups dug into reserve inventories, reduced allocations, and had to use broken or overhauled equipment because they couldn’t bring in new equipment.
American humanitarian philanthropist Ahmed Khan, who has been privately donating medicine and emergency nutrition to Gaza children, said the impact was not limited to aid organizations.
He relies on NGOs to receive and distribute supplies, but the fewer groups approved by Israel, the harder it is to find one.
“This is death by bureaucracy,” he said.