Name: How can int'l aid agencies maintain their operations in Gaza despite Israel's hefty restrictions?
Uploaded: 2025-12-31T17:04:19.000Z
Duration: 8 min 52 s
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Israel says it will bar aid organizations from working in Gaza and the occupied west bank in less than 24 hours.

The permission for 37 groups to operate is being suspended in the new year for failing to comply with new registration rules.

Well known NGOs including Doctors Without Borders are among the groups whose licenses will be suspended starting on Thursday.

They're warning that the decision will harm Gaza's civilian population.

But Israel insists the rules are needed to prevent Hamas and other militant groups from infiltrating the organizations.

At the same time, foreign ministers from 10 countries including the UK, France and Canada have published a statement on the humanitarian situation in Gaza which they say remains catastrophic.

Well, we can speak about this now with Jolene Veldwick.

She's country director of CARE Palestine who and she joins us from Amman.

Yoline, tell us more about this vetting process that Israel says NGOs like yours have failed to comply with.

Issue is, is that there's one requirement to the registration and that is the submitting of the Palestinian staff list for Gaza and the west bank as part of the registration requirements.

They have not identified or you know, why this is necessary other than saying it is for vetting.

But it is unclear how they will apply sort of the association and what risk this would bring to our staff.

Additionally, for many of us we operate under data protection laws, especially in the countries of domicile where we are registered.

So we cannot hand over or share any of our Palestinian staff lists or in their personal information with Israel as the occupying power for both Gaza and the West Bank.

And I think also it's good to note that this.

Sorry, I just wanted to ask you about the motivation for this behind this.

Israel says that the new rules will prevent militants from infiltrating a organizations.

I'm just wondering how else that concern can be addressed about infiltration other than through a vetting process.

We already operate under extensive donor mandated compliance frameworks.

You know, we do audits, we have counter terror financing controls, we have due diligence requirements that meet or even exceed international standards.

We don't work in Gaza alone, especially as care.

We work in 45 other contexts, you know, where there are also terrorism concerns and we are able to meet the requirements and also, you know, do our due diligence before we add any staff to our, to our team.

And I think it's important to note also that the allegations of diversion or staff links to armed groups, they have been made without case specific evidence, due process or even remediation pathways.

Now Gaza still has massive Humanitarian needs, as you know all too well.

Explain to us how these rules for NGO could impact provision of essential aid and what that means for the people living in Gaza.

Re registering INGOs would result in the collapse of hospital services, malnutrition treatment, winterization efforts, protection activities.

And this will pose, of course, serious risk to civilian life and also regional stability.

Critical sectors including health care, shelter, food assistance, nutrition, mine action and trauma care.

They are overwhelmingly dependent on INGO capacity as care.

We run our own health center, we run many malnutrition treatment points.

And if this were to be unable to continue, I mean, this would be devastating for the people of Gaza.

As INGOs, we are the operational backbone of the humanitarian response.

We do the last mile delivery for all of the UN funded activities as well.

The UN relies heavily on INGOs for implementation.

Yolin, thank you very much for talking with us today.

That was Yolin Veldwyk, CAIRS Palestinian Territories Director, speaking to us from Oman.

She is a communication adviser for the Norwegian Refugee Council.

NRC is among those humanitarian organizations that Israel is barring from the Gaza Strip.

And I asked her to describe her agency's work in Gaza and how important it is for Palestinians there.

NRC is supporting hundreds of thousands of people across Gaza, including providing clean drinking water for over 100,000 people daily.

We provide shelter materials, we coordinate the shelter response as part of the UN system.

We are providing temporary learning spaces for children who've been deprived of education for the last two years.

We provide legal aid and counseling for people who have lost their documentation or facing housing, land and property issues.

We are providing livelihood support, including supporting bakeries to help subsidize the cost of bread so that people can afford it and feed their families.

This is a place where tens of thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people, are in need of shelter assistance.

One quarter of families report still only surviving on one meal per day.

And our teams are on the ground and will continue to be on the ground supporting their communities however we can.

Right, So, I mean, you're painting a pretty bleak picture there for the people in Gaza, which we've seen in the images and the reports that have come from there.

Now, Israel says the new rules will prevent the infiltration of militants into aid organizations.

What have you understood from the rules and how can the NRC fulfill Israel's requirements then?

Well, we've tried to engage in good faith with the Israeli authorities on this requirement for the new registration rules that insist that we deliver Palestinian staff lists, we've offered third party vetting, we've offered alternatives, and

We've also seen some organizations that have been re registered without submitting staff lists.

And so we know that this rule is being selectively applied.

We know that this is really an effort to dismantle principled humanitarian operations in Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory.

We know what happens when unprincipled actors take up the space that should be filled by seasoned, experienced humanitarian organizations.

And that's what happened with the ghf, where hundreds of people were shot, injured and killed seeking food for several months because aid operations were obstructed and restricted from operating.

It's part of a pattern that, that we've seen for more than two years where Israeli authorities have consistently tried to obstruct our work, preventing aid from entering.

For more than nine months, nearly 10 months, NGOs like NRC have been unable to bring in aid directly into Gaza, despite it sitting mere miles away in trucks or in warehouses in Egypt and Jordan.

Explain to us what some of the safeguards NRC and other NGOs have to ensure that there are no links with the militant groups.

Well, we conduct background checks on our own staff, make sure that and follow reporting requirements as required by our donors and internally to ensure that there isn't aid diversion, to ensure that we aren't influenced by external authorities.

For our staff, this is a context where we've seen hundreds of aid workers be killed by Israel over the course of two years.

There are also data protection laws that prevent us from sharing these staff lists.

Us, we have internal mechanisms and we conduct regular audits and our donors conduct regular audits to make sure that there is nothing unusual going on with our distribution of aid and that no diversion is taking place.

And so these allegations by Israel are unfounded and are really a fig leaf to cover up the attempts to destroy and dismantle principled humanitarian operations in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Okay, we're going to have to leave it there.

Shana Lowe, Communication Advisor for the Norwegian Refugee Council.