Qatar, Turkiye and six other countries urge ‘unimpeded’ humanitarian access to Gaza as Israel cracks down on aid groups.
Several countries in the Middle East and Asia have called on Israel to allow “immediate, full, and unhindered” deliveries of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip as winter storms lash the bombarded Palestinian enclave.
In a statement on Friday, the foreign ministers of Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkiye, Pakistan and Indonesia warned that “deteriorating” conditions in Gaza had left nearly 1.9 million displaced Palestinians particularly vulnerable.
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“Flooded camps, damaged tents, the collapse of damaged buildings, and exposure to cold temperatures coupled with malnutrition, have significantly heightened risks to civilian lives,” the statement reads.
They called on the international community “to pressure Israel, as the occupying power, to immediately lift constraints on the entry and distribution of essential supplies including tents, shelter materials, medical assistance, clean water, fuel, and sanitation support”.
Israel has maintained stringent restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza despite its obligations under international law to ensure that the basic needs of Palestinians in the enclave are met.
A United States-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which came into effect in October, also stipulated that the Israeli authorities must allow hundreds of aid trucks into Gaza daily.
But Israel has failed to abide by that requirement, continuing to block deliveries despite increasingly difficult winter conditions in the coastal territory and a lack of adequate shelter, blankets and other supplies.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian families have sought refuge in makeshift shelters and overcrowded tent encampments across Gaza because their homes were destroyed in Israel’s genocidal war.
Several people were killed in recent weeks as damaged buildings collapsed under the weight of heavy rainfall and flooding. Palestinian children have also died from hypothermia as low temperatures continue to grip the enclave.
Separately on Friday, Israeli forces killed one Palestinian and injured several others west of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, Nasser Hospital said.
Four Palestinians, including a woman and two children, were seriously wounded after an Israeli drone fired a grenade at a tent housing displaced people in Beit Lahiya in the north of the Strip, a source at al-Shifa Hospital told media.
Impeding aid efforts ‘unacceptable’
In Friday’s statement, the foreign ministers commended the United Nations and other humanitarian groups for continuing to support Palestinians “under extremely difficult and complex circumstances” in Gaza.
They also demanded that Israel allow UN agencies and international nonprofit organisations to operate in Gaza and the occupied West Bank “in a sustained, predictable, and unrestricted manner” given the role they play in providing humanitarian support.
“Any attempt to impede their ability to operate is unacceptable,” they said.
The condemnation comes as Israel this week moved to implement a ban on 37 international NGOs working in Gaza and the West Bank for failing to meet new registration requirements.
Experts have denounced the Israeli government’s new rules – which require the targeted groups to provide detailed information on their staff members, funding and operations – as arbitrary and a violation of humanitarian principles.
The NGOs have also raised concerns that giving Israel personal information about their Palestinian employees puts those workers at risk of being targeted by the Israeli military.
According to Gaza’s Government Media Office, Israel has killed about 500 aid workers and volunteers in the enclave since its war began in October 2023.
Doctors Without Borders, one of the groups targeted by the NGO ban, noted in a statement on Friday that 15 of its colleagues have been killed by Israeli forces.
“In any context – especially one where medical and humanitarian workers have been intimidated, arbitrarily detained, attacked, and killed in large numbers – demanding staff lists as a condition for access to territory is an outrageous overreach,” the organisation said.
