Israel boots 37 NGOs from Gaza, Judea & Samaria over failure to abide by new registration guidelines

The licenses for 37 international nonprofits operating in Gaza and the Palestinian territories in Judea and Samaria will expire on Jan. 1, 2026, the Diaspora Affairs Ministry announced Tuesday, arguing that the groups had failed to complete new registration procedures required by law. 

The announcement came after Israel had previously extended the deadline for registration from Sept. 9 to Dec. 31, in order to give the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) time to comply.

The European Union as well as foreign ministers of ten nations, including the UK, France, Canada, Iceland, Denmark, and Japan, criticized Israel for the decision.

The ministry said the organizations had 10 months to submit registration applications under the new requirements, noting that many of the groups refused to comply with the requirement to submit full lists of their Palestinian employees for security screening. 

The new rules, announced in March of this year, require aid organizations to register the names and identity numbers of their Palestinian and foreign workers, as well as provide funding and operational details in order to continue working in the Palestinian territories. 

That requirement was added after the Israeli government exposed the identities of several international aid organizations as also being members of terror groups. An example of this is Fadi Al-Wadiya, a doctor working with Doctors Without Borders, who was revealed to have been the head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s (PIJ) rocket program. 

After the NGO posted a message to social media in June 2024, blasting the IDF for his killing, IDF Arabic Spokesman Col. Avichay Adraee posted a message of his own, showing photos of al-Wadiya in military uniform during PIJ meetings. 

#خاص صور تفند مزاعم منظمة #أطباء_بلا_حدود @msf_arabic :،معالج طبيعي في النهار ومخرب في الجهاد في الليل

🔻المدعو فادي جهاد محمد الوادية الذي تم القضاء عليه أمس والذي كان يعمل معالجًا طبيعيًا لدى منظمة "أطباء بلا حدود" عمل مخربًا بارزًا ضمن المنظومة الصاروخية التابعة للجهاد… pic.twitter.com/xc7ZSN5r4J

— افيخاي ادرعي (@AvichayAdraee) June 26, 2024

In September of the same year, another Doctors without Borders member was also revealed to have been a sniper for PIJ. 

During the Gaza War, the IDF also exposed the identities of several UNRWA members who were also active members of Hamas. 

Israeli authorities stressed that the registration requirements were not intended to hinder the delivery and distribution of humanitarian aid into Gaza and the Palestinian territories.

The office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) later posted to social media, explaining that the NGOs that refused to cooperate had not delivered any aid to Gaza during the current ceasefire, and had only contributed around 1% of the total aid volume to the Gaza Strip throughout the war. 

Regarding MSF:

MSF chose not to cooperate with the registration process and refused to provide Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs with a list of its employees, as required by a government decision.

The organization’s attempts to attribute to itself a central impact on the…

— COGAT (@cogatonline) December 30, 2025

COGAT also stated that “the registration process is intended to prevent the exploitation of aid by Hamas, which in the past operated under the cover of certain international aid organizations, knowingly or unknowingly.” 

“This phenomenon has been proven many times and included diversion of aid, the use of local employees for terrorist purposes, and the transfer of funds from terror-linked sources,” COGAT continued. “The refusal of organizations to operate transparently and to cooperate with the required checks is not technical or incidental, but rather raises genuine concern regarding the nature of their activities and the entities with which they operate.” 

The foreign ministers of 10 nations, including the UK, France, Canada, Iceland, Denmark, and Japan, on Tuesday expressed “serious concerns about the renewed deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Gaza.” 

The statement added that, “Whilst the amount of aid going into Gaza has increased since the ceasefire, the response remains severely constrained by persistent impediments on humanitarian access.”

However, the ministers did not explain that the restriction on certain aid items, called “dual-use items” by the Israeli authorities, is due to a previous history of Palestinian terror groups confiscating items, such as generators or construction equipment, for the construction of terror weapons and infrastructure. 

Later Wednesday, EU humanitarian chief Hadja Lahbib said that “The EU has been clear: the NGO registration law cannot be implemented in its current form.”

Writing on 𝕏, Lahbib added that “IHL (international humanitarian law) leaves no room for doubt: aid must reach those in need.”

Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli released a statement of his own on Tuesday, saying, “The message is clear: Humanitarian assistance is welcome – the exploitation of humanitarian frameworks for terrorist purposes is unacceptable.” 

Groups affected by the new regulations include Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam, the Danish and Norwegian Refugee Councils, and Caritas Internationalis, an umbrella of several Catholic charities. These aid groups will lose their license to operate in the Palestinian territories on Jan. 1, and if they are located in Israel, all foreign staff will be required to leave by March 1.