When Israel and the United States attacked Iran, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip began to panic. They remembered how crossings were closed in the past, leading to famine, and rushed to the markets to buy whatever they could. As a result, prices for food and basic necessities skyrocketed. Very soon the news arrived that the border crossings had been closed.
All of this occurred just as the grace period set by Israel for 37 NGOs to withdraw from Gaza for failing to comply with registration requirements expired. Organizations such as Doctors Without Borders (also known by its French acronym MSF), Medical Aid for Palestine UK, Handicap International: Humanity & Inclusion, ActionAid, CARE, etc. were supposed to. They would stop operating in Gaza.
At the last minute, a ruling by the Israeli Supreme Court allowed them to continue working while their appeal against the ban is considered. But even with this court decision, these organizations cannot continue to function fully. This is because the Israeli occupation continues to prevent its supplies and foreign personnel from entering Gaza.
According to these NGOs, together they are responsible for half of the food distribution in the Strip and 60 percent of the services provided in field hospitals.
For many families in Gaza, this means hunger, because food parcels will not be distributed and their livelihoods will be lost.
We know that it is not a question of NGOs not complying with the new registration rules, in the same way that the closure of border crossings is not a security issue. It is about imposing 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 expel these foreign organizations from Gaza. This became clear this month when it was revealed that World Central Kitchen, which has been running dozens of soup kitchens across the Strip and is not on the banned list, may be suspending operations.
According to the Gaza Government Media Office, this was because Israel blocked the entry of most of the organization’s supply trucks. As a result, there are not enough supplies to continue cooking. World Central Kitchen previously said it serves 1 million meals a day.
So now, in the midst of the war with Iran, which may last weeks or months, hundreds of thousands of families will once again lack adequate food.
All of this adds to Israel’s continuing war against UNRWA. Since its creation in late 1949, the United Nations agency has been the backbone of international support for Palestinian refugees. It has the greatest emergency response capacity and the widest spectrum of services it offers. And yet, Israel has banned its operations and blocked its supplies from entering the Strip.
Through relentless pressure, Israel has managed to achieve substantial cuts to UNRWA’s budget. As a result, 600 employees were laid off last month. The salaries of the rest were reduced by 20 percent.
Banning NGOs will likely cause thousands of people to lose their jobs as well. And this comes at a time when unemployment in Gaza has surpassed 80 percent.
My family will suffer too. In the past, we have benefited from the distribution of food and basic supplies from NGOs, and my brother was able to find temporary work as a driver for one of them.
The possible closure of international organizations is a direct threat to the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians who depend on their services and employment. The closure of border crossings could mean another hunger crisis.
This is a form of collective punishment that once again will not be news. Israel constantly thinks of new ways to make our lives much more unbearable, much more impossible in our devastated homeland.
Two and a half years of Israeli genocide have destroyed hospitals, schools, universities, roads, sewage and drinking water systems, water treatment plants, the electrical grid, and countless generators and solar panels.
The vast majority of the population lives a primitive life in tents or makeshift shelters that cannot protect people from extreme heat or cold.
The water is contaminated, the food is insufficient, the land has been destroyed and poisoned.
Now we will be deprived of the little international support that we have been receiving.
And what is the objective of all this? To bring us ever closer to despair and ultimate surrender, to make us want to leave our homeland on our own. Ethnic cleansing by mutual agreement.
All of the organizations Israel seeks to ban are foreign. Most of them are based in Western countries. However, there has been little to no condemnation from Western governments of Israel’s actions against their own organizations. There has been no outrage that the occupation is trying to destroy international humanitarian provision in order to fully control the distribution of aid.
Collective punishment is a violation of international law. States are obliged to go beyond verbal condemnations and act by imposing sanctions. Until that happens, we in Gaza will continue to be subjected to increasingly brutal acts of collective punishment by our occupiers.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
