UN agencies and NGOs operating in the Gaza Strip called this Wednesday for the “immediate” lifting of barriers to access and humanitarian operations in the occupied Palestinian territories and called on the international community to put pressure on the Israeli government in this regard.
“UN agencies and NGOs call for the immediate removal of obstacles to humanitarian access and NGO operations in the occupied Palestinian territories,” said the statement from the Humanitarian Team for these territories, which brings together UN agencies involved in assistance in the region as well as local organizations operating there.
In the same text, the organizations called on the international community to “take immediate and concrete measures to put pressure on the Israeli authorities,” citing in particular the new registration process of international NGOs (INGO), which they said “undermines humanitarian action in the occupied Palestinian territories or threatens the collapse of humanitarian assistance, particularly in the Gaza Strip.”
This system “is based on vague, arbitrary and highly politicized criteria,” as denounced by the Humanitarian Team, which also regrets that “it imposes requirements that humanitarian organizations cannot meet without violating international legal obligations or endangering fundamental humanitarian principles.”
“Although some international NGOs have registered in the new system, these represent only a fraction (…) and are far from necessary to meet immediate basic needs,” stressed the organizing group, which warned that “dozens” of them “face the cancellation of their registration before December 31, 2025, followed by the forced closure of their operations within a period of 60 days.”
The work of these organizations is “irreplaceable,” the text says, “especially after the restrictions imposed by Israel on the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) have brought humanitarian assistance in Gaza to a critical point.” “The United Nations will not be able to compensate for the collapse of INGO operations if they are shut down, and humanitarian assistance cannot be replaced by alternative actors operating outside established humanitarian principles,” he added.
Specifically, the Occupied Palestinian Territories Humanitarian Team found that “one in three health centers in Gaza will close if INGOs are forced to suspend their operations.”
“UN agencies and NGOs reiterate that humanitarian access is not optional, conditional or political. It is a legal obligation under international humanitarian law, especially in Gaza, where Israel has not guaranteed adequate supplies to the population,” defended the humanitarian coalition, which stated that Israel “must allow and facilitate the rapid and unhindered movement of relief supplies” and “immediately reverse policies that hinder humanitarian operations.”
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