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Last week, after two very long years, children in Gaza at last returned to the classroom, albeit mainly in makeshift schools. It gives some solace to see children, after the loss and trauma they have suffered, going back to where they should be and to what they should be doing at their age: furthering their education and building their future, not sheltering from bombs and bullets.
In times of war, no one suffers more than children, who are bound to be left with life-long scars. Worse, despite the ongoing so-called ceasefire, children are still being killed by Israeli airstrikes.
According to UNICEF, more than 97 percent of schools have been damaged or destroyed and will require either complete reconstruction or intensive rehabilitation to meet the educational needs of the 658,000 school-age children in Gaza, who have had limited access to face-to-face learning throughout the war.
Education, as with many other public services, is provided in Gaza and the West Bank by UN agencies and other international nongovernmental organizations. You might justifiably think that the illegal occupying force of these territories, which has both moral and legal obligations to ensure the provision of public services to those forcefully occupied, would be grateful that someone else is forking out for a bill that is Israel’s responsibility. Well, this is far from being the case; in fact, the complete opposite holds true: these organizations are under constant attack by Israel, which is both mindless and brazen.
The Israeli government thrives on picking fights with those who disagree with it and anyone who dares to criticize its conduct
Yossi Mekelberg
The most recent illustration of the Israeli government’s project to undermine humanitarianism is the revoking of the licenses of 37 international nonprofit organizations operating in Gaza and the West Bank. Israel claims they have not complied with new requirements to register with the government. While coordination between the Israeli government and those who provide humanitarian aid is necessary, under the current circumstances what Israel is demanding of these organizations is draconian.
What mainly irritates and frightens the NGOs in question is Israel’s demand that they hand over “complete” personal details of their staff, an imposition that was rightly rejected outright. Handing over such sensitive information to a party to the conflict, as was stated in a petition by 53 such groups, “would breach humanitarian principles, duty of care and data protection obligations.”
There is hardly any country on Earth possessing a more elaborate surveillance system than Israel, whether in the Occupied Territories or well beyond their borders. It is therefore completely reasonable to suspect this is another hollow attempt by a debunked Israeli government to unnecessarily flex its muscles in an attempt to deflect from its own failures. Israel’s claim that the aim is to weed out NGO workers with ties to terror groups is an obvious attempt to tar with the same brush all those who operate in the humanitarian sphere in Gaza and the West Bank.
The main organization on the receiving end of these allegations, particularly since Oct. 7, is UNRWA, which provides the lion’s share of humanitarian aid in the Occupied Territories. Israel has accused several of its employees of participating in the murderous attack in 2023. For the sake of argument, even if this were true, at worst it would be a mere handful of the organization’s 12,000 employees in Gaza who participated in this attack — and they would bear a personal responsibility, not the organization as a whole.
Likewise, if Israel can provide credible information on the involvement of employees of any of these NGOs in terrorism or any other form of militancy, it should do so. There is little doubt that these organizations have no interest in employing anyone who would compromise their ability to successfully fulfill their mandate.
Sharing employees’ personal information would probably get most groups into legal trouble, but doing so with a government that defies international law, increasingly disrespects its own domestic laws and constantly violates democratic norms, while putting immense pressure on the gatekeepers of those norms, would be criminally reckless and careless.
The current Israeli government thrives on picking fights with those who disagree with it and anyone who dares to criticize its conduct. Considering the humanitarian disaster its security forces have inflicted on Gaza and, to a lesser extent although still extremely disturbing, on the West Bank, it is not the humanitarian world that must answer some tough questions but the Israeli government.
This saga is yet another example of the government employing sheer cruelty while operating against its own interests
Yossi Mekelberg
These humanitarian organizations have done a magnificent job in the most difficult of circumstances to alleviate to some small degree the humanitarian disaster in Gaza, while about 500 among their ranks have been killed in the Strip over the last two years carrying out this sacred duty. Sadly, the mentality of the current Israeli government is one of inducing a constant sense of siege and paranoia among its people, even by portraying humanitarians as enemies, only to maintain the narrative that this government alone is the sole agency able to save Israel from its enemies, regardless of whether they are real or imaginary.
As if Israel does not have enough international challenges to deal with, picking on the humanitarian world is one of the most harmful and self-harming tactics. The Israeli military’s body that coordinates activities in the Occupied Territories, COGAT, sought to belittle the impact of the banned NGOs by claiming that their overall contribution to aid was only 1 percent. However, UN figures portray a very different picture of these groups, which run or support 60 percent of Gaza’s field hospitals, accounting for 12 percent of medicines that were sent there last year, in addition to more than half of all food assistance and hundreds of thousands of shelter items, among other essential services.
Without their operation, more children, as well as adults, would suffer from acute malnutrition and other illnesses, while their education would continue to suffer. Moreover, several NGOs are also funding the clearance of explosives, which, after more than two years of war, will continue to harm civilians if not removed by professionals and with a sense of urgency.
Ironically, all the above-mentioned activities are also in Israel’s interest, as they relieve it of some of its responsibility as an occupier. Already, a statement by the foreign ministers of the UK, France, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Japan, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland has called the Israeli decision “unacceptable” and a cause for “serious concern” about a “renewed deterioration of the humanitarian situation” in Gaza, which might lead to “catastrophic” results this winter.
This saga, which might cost many more lives and cause even more suffering, is yet another example of the current Benjamin Netanyahu-led government employing sheer cruelty while operating against its own interests, as if this were the only modus operandi of which it is capable.
- Yossi Mekelberg is professor of international relations and an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House. X: @YMekelberg