Israel Supreme Court lifts ban on Gaza foreign aid organisations

Palestinian Abu Mustafa displaced family sits together as they break the dawn-to-dusk Ramadan fast during Iftar in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on February 26, 2026. [AFP] Israel's Supreme Court decided in a ruling published on Friday to freeze a government ban on 37 foreign NGOs working in Gaza and the occupied West Bank pending a final decision. "Without taking any position, a temporary interim order is hereby issued," the court said in a ruling responding to a petition from more than a dozen NGOs, seeking to reverse the ban after Israel's government revoked their status in Israel. The decision theoretically allows the NGOs to continue working in Gaza and the West Bank until the court issues a final ruling, though aid groups expressed uncertainty as to how the freeze would be implemented. The organisations, including Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Oxfam, the Norwegian Refugee Council and CARE were notified on December 30, 2025 that their Israeli registrations had expired and that they had 60 days to renew them by providing lists of their Palestinian staff. If they failed to do so, they would have to cease operations in Gaza and the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, from March 1. The NGOs petitioned the Supreme Court via an umbrella organisation, AIDA, after their charity registration in Israel was revoked at the end of a year-long battle during which the NGOs had refused to provide lists of their Palestinian employees to Israeli authorities. The court said in its ruling that there existed a "genuine legal dispute" due to the foreign NGOs' responsibilities to their employees' privacy under European law. The Israeli defence ministry body in charge of civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories, COGAT, said that the new registration process was "designed to ensure Hamas doesn't infiltrate humanitarian organisations and use them as a disguise for its terror purposes". "Organisations who refused to comply should be asked one question: what are they hiding?", COGAT added in a statement published on X. Israel has accused NGOs such as MSF of employing Hamas fighters in Gaza, which the organisation has denied, pointing to a rigorous vetting process for staff hiring. "We are still waiting to see how the injunction will be interpreted by the state and whether or not this will mean an increase in our ability to operate", Athena Rayburn, AIDA director, told AFP of Friday's ruling, calling it "a step in the right direction". "We will keep fighting to be able to do our jobs, and deliver life saving assistance to Palestinians in need", she added. 'Breathing room' Yotam Ben-Hillel, a lawyer who represented the NGOs in court, welcomed the injunction, but told AFP that "we still don't know how it will play out". "Today, the High Court of Justice has given the residents of Gaza and the West Bank some breathing room," he said. NGOs including MSF, 15 of whose employees were killed in Gaza since the start of the war, argued they did not wish to share employee lists out of fear for their safety. Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and strictly controls all entries to and exits from Gaza. Craig Kenzie, a project coordinator for MSF in Gaza, told AFP that the organisation's 28 remaining foreign staff left the Palestinian territory on Thursday and would not be able to return unless the ban was reversed. "It's a positive step, but it's very light on the details so it's not clear what that results in in terms of getting supplies and foreign staff inside", he said. The organisation's supplies are running low because none have been allowed in since the end of 2025, he said, but added 1,200 Palestinian staff would be seeing to day-to-day operations, which include clean water provision, surgeries, and maternity health. He said that though commercial cargo has entered Gaza, the goods they bring in are unaffordable for many Gazans left destitute by the war, and that as far as he was aware no other deregistered NGO has been able to get supplies in in recent months.

Israel Supreme Court lifts ban on Gaza foreign aid organisations

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