Ha’aretz: Israel Blocked 37 Aid Groups From Gaza – and Then Claimed Credit for Their Work

Israel’s decision to prevent 37 international aid organizations from continuing their work in the Gaza Strip is the latest step in a policy that has been both cruel and amateurish in its treatment of Gaza’s civilian population.

Like other dark regimes around the world, the Israeli government has spun a web of lies and conspiracies around international organizations in an effort to blur responsibility for its own grave failure.

Since the war began, Israel has relieved itself of responsibility for Gaza’s civilians, despite its obligations under international law. That responsibility has instead been pushed onto UN agencies and international humanitarian organizations.

Operating under severe restrictions and constant danger, these groups have provided food, drinking water, medical care, shelter and other basic necessities to roughly two million people.

In return, Israeli officials have relentlessly smeared them – accusing these organizations of collaborating with Hamas or of defaming the IDF internationally. Israel intimidated organizations and aid workers, barred their entry and placed endless obstacles in the way of bringing aid, doctors and staff into Gaza.

That campaign did not prevent Israel from claiming credit for the aid that eventually reached Gaza. This week, Israel’s military coordination body for the Palestinian territories published a social media post summarizing its activities over the past year.

Styled after Spotify’s annual “Wrapped” feature, the post claimed that nearly 1.85 million tons of humanitarian aid – “the equivalent of 308,000 African elephants” – had entered Gaza.

The comparison is misleading. A basic calculation shows that this figure translates into less than 2.5 kilograms of aid per person per day. That total includes not only food, but also fuel, tents, medical equipment, pipes, generators, clothing and other supplies – all under the unlikely assumption that aid was evenly distributed.

More fundamentally, Israel did not deliver this aid. At most, it authorized its entry. The funding, procurement and distribution were carried out by the same international organizations that Israeli officials have consistently attacked. After taking public credit for their work, Israel has now stripped many of them of permission to continue operating.

The intensified campaign against the UN and international organizations dates back about a year, when the government approved new regulations transferring oversight of humanitarian groups from the Welfare Ministry to the Diaspora Affairs Ministry, headed by Minister Amichai Chikli.

Like many ministries in Netanyahu’s coalition, the Diaspora Affairs Ministry is a superfluous body led by a superfluous minister in search of relevance. During his tenure, Chikli has focused on fighting imaginary antisemitism, while cooperating with far-right parties around the world that carry antisemitic undertones. Smearing international organizations suits him perfectly.

The regulations approved last year introduced sweeping criteria for disqualifying organizations operating in Gaza and the West Bank. An organization could lose its license if it was deemed to promote “delegitimization of the State of Israel,” if one of its employees had called for a boycott of Israel in the past seven years, or if it supported legal action against Israelis in foreign or international courts.

Organizations were also required to submit lists of their Palestinian employees to Israeli authorities – a demand some groups warned could violate privacy laws and expose them to legal risk in their home countries.

For months, many organizations understood that they were likely to be disqualified; some stopped engaging with the process altogether. Contrary to official Israeli claims, several of the barred groups play central roles in Gaza’s humanitarian system.

Among them is Doctors Without Borders, which has operated clinics and brought international medical staff into the Strip. Another is the Norwegian Refugee Council, which has worked in Gaza for years. Other organizations provided specialized assistance, including clearing unexploded ordnance, treating severe malnutrition and repairing infrastructure.

Israeli officials have argued that the contribution of the disqualified organizations was relatively small. But their reduced role is largely the result of Israeli restrictions. Large shipments of aid were held up for months in Jordan, Egypt, the West Bank and at Israel’s Ashdod port after Israel declined to authorize their passage.

Throughout the war, Israel has also accused the UN of failing to collect aid that had entered Gaza, even as the Israeli military restricted UN access to those same supplies.

Like the campaign against UNRWA, the barring of doctors and aid workers, and the collapse of the alternative aid mechanism, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, promoted by Israel, this latest decision is likely to worsen humanitarian conditions in Gaza and increase civilian suffering and death. It will also deepen international criticism of Israel’s conduct. On the other hand, it may earn Minister Chikli a few more votes in his Likud party’s primaries.