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As Israel and the United States attacked Iran, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip began to panic. They remembered how crossings were closed in the past, causing famine, and rushed to markets to buy whatever they could. As a result, prices of food and basic necessities skyrocketed. Soon enough, the news came that the border crossings had been closed.
All of this happened just as the grace period set by Israel for 37 NGOs to withdraw from Gaza for not fulfilling registration requirements expired. Organisations like Doctors Without Borders (also known by its French acronym MSF), Medical Aid for Palestinians UK, Handicap International: Humanity & Inclusion, ActionAid, CARE, etc were supposed to stop operating in Gaza.
At the last moment, a ruling by the Israeli Supreme Court allowed them to continue working while it considers their appeal against the ban. But even with this court decision, these organisations cannot continue to function fully. That is because the Israeli occupation continues to prevent their supplies and foreign staff from entering Gaza.
According to these NGOs, together they are responsible for half of the food handouts in the Strip and 60 percent of services provided in field hospitals.
For many families in Gaza, this means hunger – because food parcels will not be distributed and livelihoods will be lost.
We know this is not about NGOs failing to meet new registration rules, just like the closure of the border crossings is not a matter of security. They are about exacting yet another form of collective punishment on the Palestinians.
Even if the Supreme Court miraculously rules against the NGO ban, the Israeli occupation would still find another way to push these foreign organisations out of Gaza. This was made clear this month when it was revealed that World Central Kitchen, which has been running dozens of soup kitchens across the Strip and which is not on the ban list, may be suspending its activities.
According to Gaza’s Government Media Office, this was because Israel blocked most of the organisation’s supply trucks from coming in. As a result, there are not enough supplies to continue cooking. World Central Kitchen previously said it serves 1 million meals daily.
So now, amid the war with Iran, which may last weeks or months, hundreds of thousands of families will not have adequate food once again.
All of this comes on top of Israel’s continuing war on UNRWA. Since its creation in late 1949, the United Nations agency has been the backbone of international support for Palestinian refugees. It has the largest capacity for emergency response and the widest spectrum of services on offer. And yet, Israel has banned its operations and has blocked its supplies from entering the Strip.
Through relentless lobbying, Israel has managed to achieve substantial cuts to UNRWA’s budget. As a result, last month 600 employees were fired. The salaries of the rest were reduced by 20 percent.
The NGO ban will likely result in thousands of people losing their jobs as well. And this is at a time when unemployment in Gaza has gone beyond 80 percent.
My family will also suffer. In the past, we have benefitted from food and basic supplies handouts from NGOs, and my brother has been able to find temporary work as a driver for one of them.
The possible closure of international organisations is a direct threat to the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians who depend on their services and employment. The closure of the border crossings could mean another hunger crisis.
These are a form of collective punishment that yet again will not make the news. Israel is constantly thinking of new ways to make our lives that much more unbearable, that much more impossible in our devastated homeland.
Two and half years of the Israeli genocide has destroyed hospitals, schools, universities, roads, sewage and potable water systems, water treatment plants, the electricity grid, and countless generators and solar panels.
The vast majority of the population lives primitive lives in tents or makeshift shelters that cannot protect people from extreme heat or cold.
Water is contaminated, food is insufficient, land has been destroyed and poisoned.
Now we will be deprived of the little international support we have been receiving.
And what is the goal of all this? To push us ever closer to despair and the ultimate surrender, to make us desire to leave our homeland on our own. Ethnic cleansing by mutual agreement.
All of the organisations that Israel is seeking to ban are foreign. Most of them are based in Western countries. Yet there has been little to no condemnation from Western governments of Israel’s actions against their own organisations. There has been no outrage that the occupation is trying to destroy international humanitarian provision so it can fully control aid distribution.
Collective punishment is a violation of international law. States are obliged to go beyond verbal condemnations and take action by imposing sanctions. Until that happens, we in Gaza will continue to be subjected to ever more brutal acts of collective punishment by our occupiers.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
