Photo via Christof Krackhardt/Bread for the World
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In late December of last year, the Israeli government made the decision to suspend over 30 humanitarian aid organizations operating in the Gaza Strip because of their failure to comply with new registration rules implemented earlier in that year. These new regulations would require a registration process that would make it mandatory for aid organizations to submit detailed and sensitive information in regards to their staff including names, funding sources, partnerships, and activities of their Palestinian staff, in order to determine whether or not these organizations have ties to Hamas. In addition to the request of staff lists and information, the Israeli government also asserted some ideological requirements in this deregistering process. More specifically, disqualifying organizations that have called for boycotts against Israel, denied the October 7th attack, or expressed support for any of the international court cases against Israeli soldiers or leaders. If an organization did not comply with these new registration terms, the group was to be kicked out of the region and officially suspended January first.
This act by the Israeli government has led to a lot of difficult and unprecedented discussions within these aid organizations. Giving up the names and other sensitive information would pose a huge security risk for their staff, but would allow them to continue operating. Not providing the information would protect the confidentiality of their staff but lead to them being kicked out of Gaza, allowing for the life threatening conditions to persist and worsen, increasing the severity of the crisis. These choices have posed questions regarding how neutral groups are supposed to function while being guided by humanitarian law and still providing crucial services in crisis regions. The Israeli government’s requirement that humanitarian organizations deregister in Gaza not only impedes the delivery and neutrality of this aid, but also sets a dangerous precedent that overrides the core principles of international humanitarian law (IHL) in regards to the protection and operation of aid groups in crisis zones.
The core principles of international humanitarian law are the following: humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence. These principles have essentially been embraced by the United Nations through General Assembly Resolutions 46/182 and 58/114. These values have been codified into many different humanitarian organizations’ guidelines, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders, and allow them to operate in a way that saves maximum lives and prioritizes alleviating suffering first. However, the new registration guidelines directly hinders the nature in how these organizations operate.
Humanity refers to the idea that “human suffering must be addressed wherever it is found with particular attention to who is the most vulnerable,” meaning that suffering is alleviated based on need alone, regardless of party. By enforcing these new standards, the process shifts aid from being a universal immediate response to human suffering to a process that is regulated by bureaucratic control, where life-saving mechanisms are being constrained by politics. Additionally, this conflict has killed more aid workers than any other in modern history, setting the precedent that humanity and the preservation of human life are no longer provided the protection by IHL guarantees.
Neutrality is the idea that “humanitarian aid must not favour any side in an armed conflict or other dispute.” It fundamentally ensures that groups or organizations refrain from taking sides in conflicts or engaging in any “political, racial, religious, or ideological controversies”. As mentioned previously, these new rules provide regulation based on ideological concepts (condemning Zionism), politicizing the work of these aid groups if they comply with the proposed conditions. Additionally, these conditions are very broad. For example, a humanitarian organization that has advocated to bring attention to the crisis in Gaza could be subjected to deregistration, as the Israeli government could interpret that act as going against said ideological requirements and bar them. It blurs the lines heavily between reporting actual occurrences and crossing ideological beliefs. Giving up staff list information could also be viewed as compliance with the Israeli government, which itself could be interpreted as not neutral.
Impartiality is the idea that humanitarian aid must be provided solely on the basis of need, without discrimination. It allows for actors to provide care regardless of the person’s “race, nationality, gender, religious belief, political opinion, or class”. This registration process conflicts with that notion as the Israeli government is directly seeking information based on factors of identity (religion, race, ethnicity), as the majority of these aid workers are Palestinian locals. The access to such information allows the government to continue serving their political agenda, which would not be impartial if the aid organizations complied. If the state is using an actor to accomplish a larger political objective (in this case finding ties to Hamas), then the work of that actor is inherently political.
Independence is the notion that the autonomy of humanitarian organizations is not to be subjected to political, economic, military or other motives. It allows for humanitarian actors to maintain autonomy in their work and not be influenced by larger actors. In this case, Israel’s demand infringes on the principle of independence by indirectly involving Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF; French for doctors without borders) and other aid organizations in their military operations. Complying with this demand may set a precedent for aid to be more politicized and allow for more government control in aid distribution rather than keeping aid operations free from political, economic, and military objectives. Independence exists to prevent aid from being instrumentalized, and this registration system being imposed by one of the parties in this conflict risks turning the functioning of the organizations as an extension of state policy.
The deregistration of humanitarian organizations in Gaza undermines the core principles that guide humanitarian action. Subjecting aid delivery to be filtered through the Israeli government opposes humanitarianism because it delays the process for those in need. It compromises neutrality by having these organizations become inherently political as an extension of state interests. It affects impartiality by allowing the distribution of aid to be dictated by political interests instead of the needs of civilians. Most importantly, deregistration directly affects independence by subjecting operations to state control. As these principles have the potential to be weakened via deregistration, humanitarian aid and organizations risk losing both the legal protection and core values they are built on.
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This article was edited by Griffin Strauss.
Domenick Fedele 
Andrew Kravatz 
Simba Ali