Pincer Movement: Inside Trump and Netanyahu's War on Israeli, Palestinian and International Peace, Aid and Civil Rights Groups - Israel News - Haaretz.com
Palestinians receiving humanitarian aid in Jabaliya, Gaza Strip on Wednesday, April 9, 2025.Credit: Jehad Alshrafi/AP
As news began to trickle of the Hamas-led massacres and destruction of Israel's south on October 7, Israelis began to organize at an unprecedented pace. At the helm of the response was the nation's civil society ecosystem, who pivoted from their usual duties to fill the yawning gaps in basic provisions, shelter and income left by a lagging and wholly inadequate response by the Netanyahu government.
So-called "shared society" organizations – groups that focus on bringing Jews and Arabs together – tapped their networks and used their know-how to prevent a redux of the violence that overtook Israel's mixed Jewish-Arab cities in May 2021.
Combined with federal U.S. grants from the 2020 Nita Lowey Middle East Partnership for Peace Act (MEPPA) – which pledged $250 million over five years to expand Israeli and Palestinian grassroots peacebuilding programs – and donations from European governments, non-governmental organizations were able to scale their programs to meet the surging needs of civilians in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.
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This mobilization included the defense of Palestinians' civil rights in Israeli courts, under greater pressure during the war, as well as the ramping up of foreign aid organizations managing the delivery of humanitarian assistance to Gaza.
But 2025 dealt two decisive blows to civil society organizations dealing with Israelis and Palestinians. One came from abroad: an executive order from U.S. President Donald Trump to halt all U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funding, including MEPPA grants, which affects some 160 organizations operating in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.
Credit: Nadav Gazit
The second was domestic: A Knesset bill, which passed its first reading in February, that would tax donations from foreign governments to Israeli NGOs at 80 percent, and prevent organizations that receive more than 50 percent of their budget from foreign government funding from petitioning Israel's courts.
This is joined by a decision made last year by Israel's government drastically changing the registration process for international NGOs operating in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, which went into effect in March. Sources from these organizations say that it is near impossible to perform their duties while abiding by Israel's new requests.
'A rare bipartisan success story'
Even before the codification of MEPPA in December 2020, at the end of Trump's first term, both Democratic and Republican lawmakers long believed in utilizing people-to-people peacebuilding efforts – that is, projects that encourage and facilitate encounters between Israelis and Palestinians as a primary tool toward effecting change within the conflict.
John Lyndon, the executive director at the Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP). Lyndon describes MEPPA as "one of the rare bipartisan success stories" regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.Credit: Courtesy of John Lyndon
"MEPPA was the single biggest investment in this work in history," says John Lyndon, the executive director of the Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP), a network of over 170 civil society organizations in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. ALLMEP serves as the primary interlocutor between peace-focused civil society and governments.
Before MEPPA, this work was largely funded via USAID's Conflict Management and Mitigation grant program, which served as the first major influx of U.S. cash into peacebuilding work and Israel-Palestine civil society. Kevin Rachlin, ALLMEP's U.S. director from 2019 to 2021, adds that this was broadly supported by both Democrats and Republicans, including Sens. Lindsey Graham and James Lankford, "who all understood it was important for the long term."
This set the stage for MEPPA, which ALLMEP and its bipartisan advocates originally conceived as an Israeli-Palestinian version of the International Fund for Ireland that was vital to laying the groundwork for the Good Friday Agreement, the agreement ending the bloodshed of The Troubles. The IFI was particularly successful because it created a neutral, non-politicized and credible institution towards which governments could allocate peacebuilding funds.
Lawmakers spent more than 10 years hammering out both the legislation and the general approach to U.S. involvement in Israeli-Palestinian peacebuilding efforts. "The idea was to bring a massive amount of resources to dramatically scale up peacebuilding efforts in the region. To get them to push the larger issue, you needed to have proof of concept," Rachlin says.
What can Israelis and Palestinians learn from post-conflict Ireland?
SubscribeLawmakers from both sides of the political aisle and both houses of Congress negotiated MEPPA as it was eventually passed. It was endorsed with rare consensus across the Jewish-American establishment and was codified into law by Trump. Lyndon notes that the act was also supported by "an alphabet soup of organizations who disagree on almost everything around Israel-Palestine."
"It was one of the rare bipartisan success stories on this issue in D.C. over the last five or six years. In a material sense for people on the ground, it allowed ambition," says Lyndon. "Suddenly, you were able to get multi-million-dollar grants that allowed you to take ideas you knew worked in microcosm, and to scale them exponentially."
Peacebuilding vs. the 'America First agenda'
One of the key issues throughout the political debate over MEPPA was whether to prioritize peacebuilding or finance-focused efforts. The first Trump administration's establishment of the Development Finance Corporation (which oversees investments in international development projects) only fueled such tensions, with Republicans pushing for economic-project funding over peacebuilding.
Former Sen. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) speaking at a March 2020 committee hearing. Lowey, who died in March 2025, is MEPPA's namesake.Credit: Andrew Harnik/AP
MEPPA's authors compromised on a sliding scale, whereby peace-project funding would eventually give way for increased economic funding, with the international community covering the eventual shortfall.
Many of these peacebuilding initiatives, however, were just reaching their intended peak when Trump, in his second term, announced their funding would be cut.
In late January, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent a cable to all consulates and diplomatic posts, declaring a stop-work order for existing projects funded by U.S. grants and a halt to new foreign aid programs funded via the State Department and USAID. Rubio was "initiating a review of all foreign assistance programs to ensure they are efficient and consistent with U.S. foreign policy under the America First agenda," the message stated.
"We don't really know answers to lots of the basic questions that our members are asking us every day. We had the executive order, which in itself was quite cryptic, and organizations were really left to interpret it on their own," says Lyndon. "The U.S. government speaks in a different version of the English language than Israeli peacebuilders do, so [it's difficult] to translate the legalese that you received from Washington."
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio backed MEPPA while serving as a Florida senator, yet issued a stop-work order for all existing projects funded by U.S. grants.Credit: Ken Cedeno/Reuters
The past several years of investments from U.S. taxpayers, Lyndon notes, have effectively been washed away. "It'll take literally years and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars to restore that capacity."
'We weren't expecting a complete shutdown'
Trump's attempt to strip USAID from its involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not unique to his second administration. As a precursor to his 2020 peace plan, Trump moved to shutter USAID operations in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem in 2018 while laying off wide swaths of USAID staff. Trump officials further used U.S. aid to such programs as a tool to force Palestinians to the negotiating table.
"That was also a crisis and a tragedy, but it came, in relative terms, at a far less existential moment for Israelis and Palestinians," says Lyndon.
With this context in mind, advocates are insistent that there is a clear difference between Trump's first-term actions and his current efforts at eradicating USAID.
A Palestinian walks past a ceramic sign of a USAID project in Hebron in 2019.Credit: Mussa Issa Qawasma/Reuters
"We suspected that this might happen, because of what happened in his previous term," says Ayelet Harel, the co-CEO of the Parents Circle-Families Forum, an organization that brings bereaved Israeli and Palestinian families together and advocates for an end to the conflict. When Trump was reelected, many NGOs had been preparing for his administration to once again halt aid to Palestinian groups. "But of course the scope was far-reaching; aid all over the world was halted, it wasn't just peace groups. It didn't surprise us, but it's very painful."
The group had received a three-year, $540,000 USAID grant for workshops and training for its members, including new members; some 80 people, Israelis and Palestinians, have joined the organization since October 7. "Those [workshops] are really important now. During wartime, there's a renewed need to build faith, to meet one another, to understand what's going on on the other side, to recognize the pain of the other side," Harel says.
The Parents Circle is one of 27 ALLMEP member organizations that received formal notification from the USAID that Rubio, in his capacity as acting administrator, determined that funding the organization is "not aligned with agency priorities" and "continuing this program is not in national interests." Rubio, it should be noted, backed MEPPA while serving as a Florida senator.
Protesters demonstrating against the Trump administration's USAID freeze in Washington, D.C. on February 5, 2025.Credit: Drew Angerer/AFP
Despite the halted funding, the Families Forum is continuing its workshops while seeking funding from other sources. "There are a lot of private funds and donors who believe that the forum's work is important and will keep supporting us. But this struggle isn't over money," Harel says "This crisis is one of values, and I hope that the public in Israel will see the connection between the struggle for democracy and liberalism and the struggle for peace.
"What hurts is that they're always talking in Israel and the U.S. about the need for deradicalization, at least on the Palestinian side; you don't see the fly on your own back – but in a project like ours, that's exactly what we're doing."
This crisis is one of values, and I hope that the public in Israel will see the connection between the struggle for democracy and liberalism and the struggle for peace.
Ayelet Harel
Cross-border NGOs – ones that bring together Israelis and Palestinians from East Jerusalem, the West Bank and when possible, Gaza – have been singled out by the Trump administration as particularly problematic. They are also generally more controversial than their shared society counterparts (which focus on facilitating encounters between populations living within Israel) or uninational organizations (which prepare Jewish or Arab communities alone for future cross-border encounters).
"The entire point of MEPPA is to bring Israelis and Palestinians together and have them engage on a substantive level," Rachlin says, calling the cross-border work "immensely effective."
The organizations relying on USAID funding, meanwhile, are waiting with bated breath concerning court rulings on reimbursements for expenses already incurred – and even then, the likelihood remains that this will not be adequate.
An IsraAID volunteer greets a boat of refugees in Lesbos, Greece. The Israeli humanitarian organization's work abroad is threatened by the USAID freeze.Credit: Leora Eren Frucht
IsraAID, an NGO that provides humanitarian aid and disaster relief around the world, had to halt a program by the USAID Pacific-American Fund that integrates mental health into disaster preparedness in the small Melanesian island of Vanuatu, a state whose most significant threat is climate change and extreme weather events. The yearlong program was intended to train community leaders in disaster preparedness and build mental health support networks.
At the Arava Institute in Israel's south, which brings together Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians to address environmental and climate issues alongside research and academic programs, the effect is being felt as well.
They were to receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in Middle East Regional Cooperation (MERC) grants – USAID research grants that foster scientific cooperation and technical development between Israeli and other Middle Eastern partners – for several multi-year projects due to end in 2026. The funding halt has led the institute to cut upcoming projects advancing agro-photovoltaics (combining agriculture and solar energy generation on the same land) and off-grid solar desalination.
"We didn't have hating USAID on our bingo cards," jokes Eliza Mayo, the institute's deputy director. "Last Trump term, they at some point canceled all funding to Palestinians. We were trying to work out, what if that happened? What will we do? How could we finish projects?" They made sure to add organizations from Jordan and elsewhere as partners on projects alongside Palestinians, in case the Trump administration would employ the same policy. "But we weren't quite expecting just a complete shutdown of USAID as a thing we needed to be worried about right away."
'Some key NGOs are already starting to collapse'
MEPPA funds are legally prohibited from benefiting foreign governments, U.S.-classified terror organizations, the Palestinian Authority or the Palestinian Liberation Organization. But as Republicans' already-skeptical attitudes toward Palestinians have become increasingly antagonistic in recent years, particularly after October 7, funding NGOs that work with Palestinians without external, comprehensive oversight has only added fuel to the fire of GOP hesitancy.
This shaking of confidence has and will continue to have dramatic ramifications on the NGOs' viability, since governments are widely considered to be the only institution able to fund rapid programming expansion in a way that the private sector and individual megadonors simply cannot.
"The problem is too large. Look at the example of Ireland: They spent $45 per person on peacebuilding efforts for roughly 500,000 people. In Israel-Palestine, it's a buck," says Rachlin. "You can't get good results on a dollar. You actually have to invest the money. The only people willing to do it are governments."
Should Trump manage to completely halt funding, there is a general hope among advocates that the Arab world and European countries would increase their contributions. Countries like Britain have already committed to an international fund with grants already off the ground and moving. But there is an acknowledgement that the United States is the leading cog in the machine. "Losing that funding and the credibility of U.S. backing of peacebuilding work is very dangerous," Rachlin says.
The disinformation campaign led by Trump advisor Elon Musk surrounding aid funds – whether related to the disproven claim that tens of millions have been allocated to purchase condoms for Gaza, allegations that umbrella organizations like the New Israel Fund are part of some sort of deep-state operation or the failsafe option of alleging Jewish billionaire George Soros' involvement – have only shaken the confidence of potential investors.
Protesters in Washington D.C. holding signs decrying U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to axe USAID. As of April 2025, the White House has cut 83 percent of USAID staff and instructed employees to destroy classified documents.Credit: Drew Angerer/AFP
Not only does "this money not do that, and every cent is accountable," says Rachlin, but the investments are "one of the only data-proven interventions to actually change people's minds. The idea that you're cutting the money is [like] cutting your nose to spite your face."
As of late April 2025, the Trump administration is well on its way toward dismantling USAID, informing 83 percent of staff that it will be laid off while instructing employees to destroy classified documents.
Those attempting to conserve any sort of dedicated international aid component of U.S. foreign policy remain insistent that there has to be some sort of continued American investment in international peacebuilding.
Pete Marocco, who oversaw the USAID teardown in conjunction with Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team, was unceremoniously dismissed from the State Department amid internal tensions — sparking some optimism that Rubio would heed advocates' call.
Pete Marocco, a Trump political appointee focused on gutting USAID, leaving a congressional hearing in March. Marocco was fired in mid-April.Credit: J. Scott Applewhite/AP
In an April 22 statement, the U.S. Secretary of State said that the remaining USAID functions will not be transferred to the State Department bureau that oversees global democracy and human rights. Rubio claimed thats the bureau had become "a platform for left-wing activists to wage vendettas against 'anti-woke' leaders in nations such as Poland, Hungary and Brazil, and to transform their hatred of Israel into concrete policies such as arms embargoes."
Rubio said that, instead, those departments' responsibilities would be "placed under the new Coordinator for Foreign Assistance and Humanitarian Affairs charged with returning them to their original mission of advancing human rights and religious freedom, not promoting radical causes at taxpayer expense."
All of this said, advocates are warning of a potential massive collapse of several key NGOs. "Some are already starting to collapse, just like the rest of the humanitarian sector. These organizations cannot survive when their money is cut out from under them without any planning," one key figure in the field, speaking on the condition of anonymity, says. "The conflict will worsen in the immediate future, and it will only spread further."
New Israel Fund executive director Mickey Gitzin. "Populist regimes, as you see [in Israel] or in other countries around the world, including the U.S., are trying to undermine any criticism," by passing legislation that is hostile to NGOs, Gitzin says.Credit: Tomer Appelbaum
The New Israel Fund, a nonprofit that focuses on shared society, human rights, religious freedom and social justice issues, is not affected by the USAID halt or by the new Israeli proposal, but its grantees are.
The Fund has managed to double its budget during the Gaza war, giving $12 to $14 million to progressive Israeli groups over the past year, and distributing about the same amount in earmarked donations to specific organizations from donors.
"The notion of civil society and human rights organizations, shared society organizations and others is based on the idea that people have a voice, and they can use it to promote their own values, ideas, needs and so on. And those are often critical organizations. Populist regimes, as you see [in Israel] or in other countries around the world, including the U.S., are trying to undermine any criticism," says Mickey Gitzin, executive director of NIF in Israel.
Israel's war on foreign-funded NGOs
In Israel, the government is waging its own war against NGOs.
In February, an amendment to Israel's 1980 NGO registration law, initiated by Likud MK Ariel Kallner, passed a preliminary reading in the Knesset. The legislation, first proposed in December 2024, takes aim at civil society organizations that receive funding from foreign governments, taxing such donations at 80 percent.
The bill includes another provision: "The court shall not entertain a petition submitted by an organization that is primarily funded by foreign political entities if it is not funded by [Israel]."
In February, Likud MK Ariel Kallner initiated the bill that would impose an 80 percent tax on foreign government donations to Israeli NGOs.Credit: Naama Grynbaum
According to the bill, its purpose is to "reduce the indirect influence of foreign governments and political entities on Israel" exerted through "direct financial support of NGOs in Israel." According to the bill's reasoning, foreign-funded NGOs act as fifth columnist "agents of change" to further the interests of foreign powers, harming national sovereignty and independence.
Israel, the bill says, has marked these organizations as tax-exempt, "even though Israel does not benefit from this." At the bill's first reading, Kellner said that Israel's courts "have turned into a playing field for foreign countries." He presented data from the right-wing group Im Tirtzu, stating that since 2017, 38 "extreme left organizations funded to the tune of more than 8 billion shekels by foreign governments" have submitted 1,000 petitions to the High Court of Justice.
Kellner called out HaMoked: the Center for the Defense of the Individual, an NGO that provides aid to Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. Palestinians can file complaints to HaMoked regarding violations of their freedom of movement and detainee rights, housing demolitions and East Jerusalem residency status, and the organization contacts military and civil authorities on their behalf. It also files legal petitions to the courts. According to Kellner's data, HaMoked – or "The Center for Defense of Terrorists," as he called it during the bill's reading – filed about 42 percent of the 1,000 High Court petitions.
HaMoked receives about 90 percent of its funding from foreign donors. About 5.9 million shekels of its 6.5 million shekel budget came from abroad in 2023.
'A deterioration of Israeli democracy beyond recognition'
Jessica Montell, the executive director of HaMoked, called this legislation "the latest effort in this ongoing hostility to human rights organizations in general."
She added that her organization is authorized by the relevant authorities in Israel to fight in court for the rights of Palestinians. "To pass a law that says an organization legally registered to provide legal aid to Palestinians cannot be petitioning the court – it should be clear that that is an unconstitutional law."
Montell says that about 70 percent of the organization's budget comes from European governments. The international community – and particularly Europe – must make it clear to Israel, she says, "that cooperation and benefits from the relationship with Europe are a package deal, and Europe should not allow Israel to pick and choose which portions of that cooperation" they participate in.
"They want to receive 99 percent of European funding with no interruptions while they are targeting the 1 percent" that goes to human rights groups, according to Montell. "All of our efforts right now are focused on ensuring that that message is made very forcefully to Israel: Either they want to enjoy close cooperation with Europe, or they don't."
All of our efforts right now are focused on ensuring that that message is made very forcefully to Israel: Either they want to enjoy close cooperation with Europe, or they don't.
Jessica Montell, head of HaMoked
HaMoked executive director Jessica Montell leading a tour in the West Bank. HaMoked, which receives about 70 percent of its budget from European governments, would be subjected to the 80-percent NGO tax if it's enshrined into law.Credit: HaMoked
Currently, Montell said, the organization is hoping that this law does not pass. "I shouldn't say that it's inconceivable," she says, "because plenty of things that we would have thought were inconceivable are taking place, but to be restricting organizations that are legally registered in Israel from petitioning Israeli courts would really be a sign of deterioration of Israeli democracy beyond recognition."
Gilad Bar-On, a strategic advisor who works with NGOs, says that many organizations in a broad variety of fields are troubled by this proposal. "This law worries them, mostly because of what it represents for Israeli democracy. There are a lot of things that they can do about the financial aspects of this legislation. But the statement behind this law is that if an NGO exists in Israel, the government must support it and stand behind it. And for an NGO to get that support from the government, it must support its policies – it can't be critical or express an independent opinion."
Restricting organizations that are legally registered in Israel from petitioning Israeli courts would be a sign of deterioration of Israeli democracy beyond recognition.
Jessica Montell
He added that foreign governments don't only fund human rights groups, but also organizations supporting welfare, environmental issues and Holocaust survivors living in Israel. "This is a way to bring sanctions upon citizens who are organizing as NGOs. What they're doing is legal – but they're saying that in order for you to exist, we must support you," says Bar-On.
If USAID funding, including MEPPA grants, were to resume, Lyndon notes, the 80 percent tax would apply to them as well. The provision against petitioning the courts is less relevant, as the United States rarely funds groups that advocate in court.
But even if the tax were lower than the 80 percent suggested by this bill, Lyndon says, no government would donate to Israeli NGOs. "It's very hard to make a case to any taxpayer anywhere that it is a priority to fund anything in Israel if 80 cents on the dollar is going to go to the Israeli exchequer rather than towards the program or the priority that taxpayers think is important. So this will be existential to very many organizations," he says.
MKs Bezalel Smotrich (C) and Itamar Ben-Gvir (R) have both proposed similar bills in the past that would have imposed hefty taxes on NGO donations from foreign governments.Credit: Noam Moskowitz/Knesset
This is not the first time such legislation was proposed. In 2022, far-right Otzma Yehudit party head Itamar Ben-Gvir conditioned his party's entry to Netanyahu's coalition on a variety of laws and orders, including the passage of a law imposing hefty taxes on NGO donations from foreign governments.
According to the proposal, nonprofits would be taxed 65 percent on its income if it engages in public advocacy – defined as appealing to government institutions, including the courts and Knesset, or using paid advertising to promote a cause – within two years before or after receiving a foreign donation.
It was similar to a bill proposed that same year by Bezalel Smotrich and other members of his far-right Religious Zionism party; Smotrich had previously tried to get the same bill passed in 2015. Neither bill passed a preliminary reading.
In May 2023, following pressure from the United States and European countries, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the passage of the law be postponed and reexamined. But this is no longer the U.S. government's line.
Targeting Gaza aid groups: 'We're very short of allies'
Alongside the attempted defanging of progressive organizations in Israel, the government has also set its sights on global aid groups that benefit Palestinians. On March 10, the Diaspora Ministry announced a new policy for registering the international NGOs that operate in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza has officially gone into effect.
MK Amichai Chikli's Diaspora Affairs Ministry introduced a new registration policy for international NGOs that operate in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. The policy requires providing confidential personnel information to Israel, which a senior humanitarian official described as "one of the most universal red lines."Credit: Noam Moskowitz/Knesset
Initially announced in December, the new guidelines would see responsibility for reviewing and registering these foreign aid groups transferred from the Social Affairs Ministry to an interministerial team, led by the Diaspora Ministry, that "will be authorized to refuse registry to organizations or overturn a registration if the organization is found to act against the interests of the State of Israel," last year's announcement had said.
For the past year-and-a-half, it has been exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, for international aid workers to receive work visas. After October 7, the Social Affairs Ministry – which had been writing the recommendation letters that aid workers need in order to receive visas – stopped issuing the letters due to their enormous burden of work. Although many workers had their visas extended automatically, few were renewed after that expiration.
Despite Knesset crusade, UNRWA continues operations
At the end of January, the Knesset also passed two laws taking aim at the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). The first prohibited any UNRWA operations inside Israel, while the second law prohibited any ties between UNRWA and Israeli authorities.
The organization had received renewed attention after October 7 for the alleged involvement of its employees in Hamas atrocities, including the abduction of Israeli civilians and the use of its facilities to store weapons and detain hostages. The United Nations fired nine employees that Israel linked to the attack after an internal investigation.
Despite the bans, UNRWA's facilities have continued to operate, and Israel has not taken any action to prevent the organization from operating its schools, clinics and other services in East Jerusalem, including the Shoafat refugee camp, where the agency serves 16,500 Palestinians.
But Israel did revoke the visas of dozens of international UNRWA employees who were managing operations in the West Bank and East Jerusalem; they continue to work from Jordan. Most of its employees are local Palestinians, who have been working as usual.
In Gaza, the organization remains the largest aid agency in operation. Before the war began last year, UNRWA ran 284 schools in the enclave. Now, the agency is unsure when they will open again. "Most of our schools were destroyed or significantly hit; there is much destruction and unexploded bombs. Remaining schools continue to serve as shelters for displaced people," UNRWA spokeswoman Juliette Touma told Haaretz in February.
She added, "There are also problems of financing. Under these circumstances it will be very difficult to resume classes. All this has immense impact on the children of Gaza. They are a lost generation and will be at greater risk of being recruited by armed groups, of marrying young, of having violence in the family, and more."
In October 2024, the Association of International Development Agencies, an umbrella group of organizations that provide aid to Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, petitioned the High Court of Justice, stating that according to Israeli and international law, the state must support the delivery of humanitarian aid – which was imperiled by the lack of visas for staffers. The new guidelines came as a response to this petition.
Doctors Without Borders and World Health Organization logos are seen on humanitarian supplies for Gaza stored at Red Crescent warehouses in the Egyptian border town of El-Arish on April 8, 2025.Credit: Benoit Tessier/AFP
Among the guidelines' considerations that could get an organization rejected or delisted, or its members refused Israeli visas, were whether it published calls to boycott Israel in the past seven years; if there is "reasonable basis to assume" that it opposes Israel's existence as a Jewish and democratic state; incites racism; supports armed struggle against the State of Israel; or "actively advances delegitimization activities against the State of Israel." The Diaspora Ministry has not given INGOs guidelines about what will or will not be considered such activities.
There are 170 foreign aid groups affected, including Doctors Without Borders, the Norwegian Refugee Council, Medico, Oxfam, Save the Children and others. They distribute food; provide medical aid, vaccines and psychological support; run temporary schools; help Palestinians displaced by war and set up accessible temporary shelters in war-ravaged Gaza. "Despite reports that Gaza has been flooded with aid, what we provide today is really the difference between someone surviving the next 24 hours," says a senior humanitarian official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
It's one of the most universal red lines. You know, if we allow [the Israeli government] to vet our staff, what's to stop the Taliban in Afghanistan from saying 'We're going to vet your staff?' What about allowing Russia to vet our staff that are working in occupied Ukraine?
Senior humanitarian official
In their March announcement, the ministry said that it has added new considerations based on a bill passed the previous month banning entry to Israel from anyone who denies October 7 or expresses support for the international prosecution of Israeli security personnel.
This would affect nearly every aid group in operation, even those that do not engage in advocacy work, according to the official. "There are well-documented instances of crimes against civilians happening in Gaza, so a lot of agencies wouldn't even consider that advocacy so much as they would consider it a factual presentation of the events" to call for prosecution, they said.
Organizations that had previously been registered with the Social Affairs Ministry have a six-month window to reregister with the Diaspora Ministry, but the official says that groups are not clamoring to do so. As part of the new registration process, Israel's government is asking for detailed lists of both international and Palestinian staff, including passport and ID numbers.
Displaced Palestinians receiving cooked food rations at a donation point in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on April 16, 2024.Credit: Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via AFP
"This would essentially be providing confidential information to one of the parties to the conflict," the official said, adding that these groups believe that if a staff member is flagged by Israel as problematic or a security risk, their registration may be contingent on firing that person. "This is not a line that NGOs can cross. If that's enforced, NGOs will not be able to proceed with registration. It's not clear how they would then be able to operate in Gaza, if at all."
These organizations, the official said, do vet their staff themselves, and also have an interest in not letting Hamas members infiltrate them and divert their aid. But allowing Israel – one of the parties of the conflict they are addressing – control over their personnel would be an unprecedented step. "It's one of the most universal red lines. You know, if we allow [the Israeli government] to vet our staff, what's to stop the Taliban in Afghanistan from saying 'We're going to vet your staff?' What about allowing Russia to vet our staff that are working in occupied Ukraine?"
For now, the situation looks grim for these groups. "With the change in U.S. administration and a U.S. government that clearly doesn't care about anything humanitarian, we're very short of allies on this – at least allies with influence," the official said.