Israel’s top court allows aid groups facing Gaza ban to continue working

The Supreme Court ruling comes after Israel said it would ban 37 aid groups from Gaza for failing to follow new rules.

Israel’s Supreme Court has ruled that dozens of international aid agencies can continue to operate in the Gaza Strip and other Palestinian territories, freezing an earlier government decision that barred aid groups that failed to comply with new rules.

In a ruling on Friday, Israel’s top court issued a temporary injunction to allow the NGOs to continue most of their activities while it considers a petition from 17 aid agencies against the government ban.

Israel had announced it will ban 37 aid groups from war-torn Gaza, the occupied West Bank, and occupied East Jerusalem on March 1, a move that experts warned could have potentially devastating consequences for Palestinians.

Aid agencies – including Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, Oxfam, the Norwegian Refugee Council and CARE – were notified by Israeli authorities in December that their Israeli work registrations had expired and that they had 60 days to renew them and provide lists containing personal details on their Palestinian staff.

The organisations say compliance with the Israeli orders would expose their Palestinian staff to potential retaliation, undermine the principle of humanitarian neutrality and violate European data protection law.