JERUSALEM: New Israeli legislation regulating foreign aid groups has been increasingly used to deny their requests to bring supplies into Gaza, according to a joint letter signed by more than 100 groups published Thursday.
Ties between foreign-backed aid groups and the Israeli government have long been beset by tensions, with officials often complaining the organizations are biased.
The rocky relations have only gotten more strained in the wake of Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel in October 2023.
“Israeli authorities have rejected requests from dozens of NGOs to bring in lifesaving goods, citing that these organizations are ‘not authorized to deliver aid’,” the joint statement reads.
According to the letter, whose signatories include Oxfam and Doctors Without Borders (MSF), at least 60 requests to bring aid into Gaza were rejected in July alone.
