YESTERDAY, Israeli authorities announced that the Zionist regime had banned 37 international aid agencies operating in Gaza and the West Bank, with Hamas saying it ‘constitutes a dangerous escalation and a blatant disregard for the humanitarian system’.
On Tuesday, reports emerged in the Israeli press that the Israeli government intended to cancel the licences of several international organisations operating in Gaza and the West Bank, including Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Oxfam, ActionAid and the Norwegian Refugee Council.
This was confirmed by the Zionist authorities using the pretext that these 37 organisations had failed to meet new stringent rules for aid groups and would therefore be suspended from 1st January.
The stringent new rules would force these aid agencies and organisations to provide detailed lists of all their Palestinian employees for ‘security vetting’, a move that would put the lives of these employees along with their families at grave risk from a murderous Zionist regime that has long targeted aid workers.
Shaina Low from the Norwegian Refugee Council said that they could not provide the Israeli authorities with lists of Palestinian staff as: ‘We’ve seen that hundreds of aid workers were killed over the last two years,’ and that acknowledging who they are to the Israeli authorities puts their lives at risk: ‘Because we’ve seen that aid workers are just as unprotected, and at times, have been targeted by Israeli authorities.’
MSF, which is one of the largest medical groups providing vital services in Gaza, has warned of the catastrophic impact on its work and the health of Palestinians in the enclave.
Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam’s policy-lead in the occupied Palestinian territory, told Middle East Eye that: ‘The core issue here is not a legal technicality, it’s the use of a politicised registration to restrict life-saving aid and that’s against international humanitarian law.’
In its statement, Hamas said the move reflects a ‘blatant disregard for the international community and the global humanitarian system’ and is part of Israel’s effort to politicise aid work in order to turn it into a tool to pressurise Palestinians into surrender.
The statement pointed out that this attempt to weaponise humanitarian aid comes at a time when Palestinians in Gaza are facing an intensifying humanitarian catastrophe as a result of Israel’s genocidal policies.
Over one and a half million Palestinians are starving in Gaza with Israel accused by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA) of blocking them from bringing in 6,000 trucks carrying tents, blankets and winter clothes, along with food supplies, as Gaza is being hit by storms that have ripped up thousands of tents.
Ten countries, including the UK, have issued a joint statement condemning the Israeli ban while the UN human rights chief Volker Turk called it ‘outrageous’.
But outrage and formal statements of condemnation will not stop the deliberate starvation and a genocidal war that has killed over 71,000 Palestinians, mainly women and children.
On Monday, Israeli prime minster Benjamin Netanyahu met with US president Donald Trump in Florida, with the pair of them presenting a united front while heaping praise on each other.
Trump insisted that Israel is fully living up to its commitments under his peace deal ‘100 per cent’ adding: ‘I’m not concerned about anything that Israel is doing.’
With this complete backing from Trump and US imperialism, Netanyahu’s regime is confident it can ignore the UN and all the feeble criticism from the Labour government, whose support for Zionist genocide is equally cast iron.
The Palestinians have demonstrated that they will not be forced out of their homes and land despite all the crimes against humanity being carried out by imperialist backed Zionist occupiers.
The time has come for the working class in the US, UK and Europe to take up the call for action by mobilising its strength, by calling general strikes to bring down their genocidal enabling capitalist governments, replacing them with workers governments and socialism.
The immediate task is to put an end to capitalism and advance humanity with the victory of the world socialist revolution.
