The European Commission (EC) urged Israel on Tuesday to allow international NGOs to provide humanitarian aid to civilians in need in the Gaza Strip, following the Israeli veto of 37 organizations, whose foreign workers must leave the enclave before March 1.
“We call on Israel to allow international NGOs to operate and provide vital aid to civilians in need in Palestine. Without these international NGOs, humanitarian aid cannot be provided on the scale necessary to prevent further loss of life in Gaza,” expressed in a joint statement the head of European diplomacy, Kaja Kallas, and commissioners Hadja Lahbib and Dubravka Šuica.
The European Commission assured that the activities of NGOs in Palestinian territory must be carried out in a “sustained and predictable” manner to provide humanitarian aid “quickly, safely and on the required scale”, and recalled that the entry of basic resources for the Palestinian population “depends on access”, which Tel Aviv currently controls.
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The EC asserted that, according to international humanitarian law, “all parties to a conflict” must facilitate the rapid and unhindered passage of humanitarian aid, and stressed that these basic services must be ensured especially now, when “the humanitarian situation in Gaza continues to worsen”.
“With the arrival of winter, Palestinians are exposed to heavy rains and increasingly low temperatures, without safe shelter. Children remain out of school. Medical facilities barely function, with minimal staff and equipment,” they denounced.
37 NGOs outside Gaza
The Israeli Executive announced last week the decision to withdraw the licenses of 37 NGOs, including Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Action Against Hunger, OXFAM, Caritas or Movimiento por la Paz, stating that they had not completed a registration process approved in March 2025.
That process, for which Israel alleged “security reasons” in order to detect “terrorists”, includes, among other things, the obligation of organizations to give the Israeli Government sensitive information such as the names of all their employees.
NGO workers must leave the Gaza Strip before March 1, a period that the Israeli government gives them to complete the cessation of their activities.
In the statement, the European commissioners recalled that, following Israel’s intention to apply this NGO registration law, the European Council urged Benjamin Netanyahu’s Executive not to apply it in its current form.
Israel’s decision has also been widely criticized by dozens of NGOs, different countries, the Palestinian authorities and international organizations such as the UN, which called the suspensions “arbitrary” and warned that they “worsen an already intolerable situation for the people of Gaza.”
