Several international humanitarian organizations, including Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), could be banned from operating in Gaza starting Thursday for failing to comply with new Israeli restrictions on aid groups operating in the devastated enclave.
Israel announced on Tuesday it would suspend the operations of international aid organizations that fail to renew their registrations, including requiring organizations operating in Gaza to provide personal information of their staff.
Aid agencies have repeatedly raised concerns about these requirements, citing the safety of their staff.
Israel’s move came as 10 countries warned that the humanitarian situation in Gaza was facing “another deterioration” and that the situation in the enclave “remains catastrophic.”
Ruined Gaza is enduring a harsh winter, with heavy rains and plummeting temperatures exacerbating already dire living conditions.
Heavy rain and strong winds destroyed the waterlogged, flimsy tents in which many Palestinians were forced to live, killing at least 20 people as homes and buildings collapsed as they sought refuge from harsh weather conditions, the Hamas-run Gaza Government Media Office (GMO) said.
“As winter approaches, civilians in Gaza are facing dire conditions of heavy rain and falling temperatures,” the foreign ministers of Canada, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Japan, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland said in a statement on Tuesday.
Relief organizations say Israel’s decision affects more than two dozen aid organizations and that suspending operations in Gaza “will cost Palestinian lives.”
“Removing these humanitarian organizations now will result in even more exposure, disease, and preventable deaths,” Refugees International said in a statement. “This is an excuse to further restrict aid to Gaza while silencing independent aid organizations.”
Israel has argued that the registration rules are meant to prevent Hamas from misusing international aid, a claim rejected by the United Nations and aid groups. A US government investigation earlier this year found no evidence of widespread theft by Hamas, Israel and the US State Department claim.
“Registration requirements are aimed at preventing the involvement of terrorist elements and protecting the integrity of humanitarian operations, as has been demonstrated in past cases,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
United Nations agencies and aid groups have repeatedly expressed concerns about Israel’s registration rules.
Israel said it notified international organizations in March of the need to comply with the requirements. Those who did not renew their registrations were told that their approval would end on January 1 and that they would have to cancel their registrations after two months.
The Coordination of Regional Government Activities (COGAT), the Israeli government agency tasked with facilitating aid distribution in the Gaza Strip, said the medical charity MSF “chose not to cooperate with the registration process required by the government’s decision and refused to provide a list of its personnel to the Israeli Ministry of Diaspora Affairs.”
CNN has contacted MSF for comment.
Aid agencies have balked at Israel’s new demands.
“The system relies on vague, arbitrary and highly politicized standards, imposing requirements that humanitarian organizations cannot meet without violating their obligations under international law or violating core principles of humanitarianism,” the Humanitarian States Team in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, a forum that brings together U.N. agencies and more than 200 local and international organizations, said in December.
In May, Oxfam raised concerns about its obligation to hand over staff lists and other information about staff and their families to Israel following a deadly attack on aid workers in Gaza.
Oxfam said in a statement: “This raises serious protection concerns in a context where humanitarian workers and health workers are routinely subjected to harassment, detention and direct attack.”
MSF, one of the largest medical operations operating in Gaza, said losing access “would be a disaster for the Palestinian people.”
“If MSF loses access to Gaza in 2026 due to Israeli authorities, a large part of Gaza’s population will be left without vital medical care, water and life-saving assistance,” the medical organization said in a statement earlier this month. “MSF’s work is helping nearly half a million people in the Gaza Strip through vital support to devastated health systems.”
COGAT asserted that the suspended organizations will not bring aid into Gaza during the current ceasefire period and that “the government’s decision will not result in future damage to the amount of humanitarian aid flowing into the Gaza Strip.”
The report said 4,200 trucks continue to flow into the Gaza Strip each week through the United Nations, donor countries, the private sector and more than 20 registered international organizations.
However, a group of more than 40 organizations, including MSF and Oxfam, announced in October that Israel had continued to “arbitrarily deny life-saving shipments” since the ceasefire.
More than a dozen international aid groups “have been denied entry to Gaza with emergency relief supplies, including water, food, tents and medical supplies” because most are “not authorized” to deliver aid, the group said.
Alarmed by the situation in the Gaza Strip, the 10 foreign ministers called on the Israeli government to take “urgent and important steps”, including allowing international NGOs to continue operating there and allowing the United Nations and its partners to carry out humanitarian work.
They also called on Israel to “open its borders and increase the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza.”
At least 1.3 million people remain in need of emergency evacuation, while more than half of Gaza’s medical facilities are only partially functioning due to a lack of essential medical supplies, the statement said. It added that around 740,000 people are at risk of toxic flooding due to the collapse of sanitation infrastructure.
The death toll rose further over the weekend due to bad weather. Gaza’s civil defense authorities said two people, including a 7-year-old child, were killed Sunday when a wall collapsed due to the cold.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry rejected the joint statement, calling it “false but not surprising.”
The statement reflects “a repeated pattern of insensitive criticism and unilateral demands against Israel, while willfully ignoring the key requirement of disarmament of Hamas, which is a prerequisite for Israeli and regional security,” the ministry said in a post on X.
The statement also criticized the statement for overlooking the “significant improvement in the humanitarian situation in Gaza since the ceasefire,” and attributed this progress to the efforts of Israel as well as the United States.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues his visit to the United States, where he received a warm welcome from President Donald Trump and expressed alarm from several Western countries over the winter aid crisis.
In an interview aired on Tuesday, Fox News’ Bret Baier asked Netanyahu whether he thought there would be a new government in Gaza in 2026 with international stabilization forces on the ground.
“If we disarm Hamas, we can form a new government in Gaza,” Prime Minister Netanyahu said. “If Hamas continues to carry weapons and put bullets in the back of the head of a potential new government, no one will come there.”
“If we disarm Hamas, whether by international forces or by other means, we certainly see a different future for Gaza.”
The interview aired a day after Netanyahu met with President Trump in Florida. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Bayer that he and the US president were “on the same page” and that Trump had not complained about Israel’s recent attack on Gaza.
“He understands,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said of Trump.
Hamas rejected calls to disarm in a statement on Monday. “Our people are defending themselves and will not give up their arms as long as the occupation continues,” said the group’s new spokesperson, Hudayfa Samir Abdullah al-Qalut.
