Thousands of Palestinians could be denied lifegiving care

United Nations agencies and international aid organisations (INGOs) have warned that Israel's new registration procedures for relief agencies could deny lifegiving care to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza during this year. Israel has said the re-registration process is meant to exclude hostile groups from among the 100 which have applied. Rejections were issued to aid agencies which refused to submit to the new Israeli demand for Palestinian staff lists and identification of donors. Thirty-seven agencies have registered and are allowed to operate.

Israel has raised a high bar. Its Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism told AFP that groups were banned that were accused of terrorism, antisemitism, Holocaust denial, delegitimization of Israel, and the refusal to condemn the Hamas attack in Israel on October 7th, 2023. The UN relief agency UNRWA, which has cared for Palestinian refugees since 1950, was banned in 2024 after several staff members were charged with taking part in that attack. Their dismissal did not prompt Israel to change its policy. Israel has been determined to ban UNRWA for decades although the agency has assumed Israel's obligations under international law as occupier, to provide food, shelter, education and health care for the 5.5 million Palestinians it occupies. Since UNRWA supplies the services normally provided by a state, it has become the substitute for the state Palestinians have been denied. This is why Israel seeks to end UNRWA whatever the cost to Palestinians under its care.

Among the agencies banned are Action Against Hunger, ActionAid. CARE, the Danish Refugee Council, CARE, Médecins du Monde — France, Médecins du Monde — Switzerland, Mercy Corps, World Vision International, the International Rescue Committee, Medico International, Near East Council of Churches, and Caritas Jerusalem.

The October 10th ceasefire which isn't a ceasefire continues. Since it came into effect 449 Palestinians, 100 of whom were children, have been killed and 1,264 others wounded, according to Gaza's health ministry. The UN children's agency UNICEF described the situation as a “ceasefire that kills children.” Israel has withdrawn from about 40 per cent of Gaza and drawn a yellow line behind which Israeli troops are deployed. Palestinians who innocently approach the yellow line are shot dead without warning.

The Guardian reported that the US is implementing a long-term division of Gaza into two areas, with the eastern section remaining under Israeli and international military control. This would become the "green zone" where the strip's 2.2 million Palestinians would live. More than 1 million are currently displaced and have been forced to move multiple times. While there would be reconstruction and development in the eastern zone, the western zone, including the coast, would be emptied of Palestinians and remain in ruins. This can be considered a genocidal policy as dividing Gaza would exacerbate crowding as Gaza in entirety is one of the most densely populated areas on the face of the earth.

Since Israel violates with impunity international law and international humanitarian law, both existential systems are undermined and even cancelled, leaving the disadvantaged people of the Third World unprotected. Neocolonialism is flourishing. Donald Trump's abduction of Venezuela's leader Nicolas Maduro and threats to seize Greenland from US-ally and NATO member Denmark are examples of the international free-for-all. He has also spoken of taking over Canada and Panama. This is particularly dangerous because of erratic, ambitious Trump who is determined to exercise US power and wealth for personal gain and aggrandisement.

Meanwhile, implementation has gone forward of Trump's 20-point plan for Gaza. A reluctant Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu cannot risk alienating Trump by sabotaging this plan as he has done with earlier efforts. While the first phase of the plan has been completed with a de facto ceasefire (which Israel violates daily), and the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, the second phase is in train. It involves Hamas disarmament (which it rejects), the deployment of a still-to-recruit International Stabilisation Force (ISF), Israeli military withdrawal from more than half of Gaza, administration by a Palestinian technical committee, the removal of unexploded ordnance and rubble, and reconstruction of the devastated strip. Since it is impossible to carry out phase two by implementing its terms in logical succession, the US is proceeding with elements Israel finds impossible to block or subvert.

The 15-member technocratic committee set to oversee the transfer of power has been formed under the chairmanship of Ali Shaath, an engineer from an influential Gazan family. Colonialist style implementation will be overseen by Trump's "Board of Peace" and former UN Middle East peace coordinator Nickolay Mladenov from Bulgaria. Trump chairs the board while its members include US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, envoy Steve Witkoff, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner whose family has donated to Israeli causes. Blair's appointment has been challenged because of his launch of the illegal 2003 Iraq war. US Major General Jasper Jeffers, an ex-special operations commander, was appointed ISF commander.

Israel's assault on Gaza has killed 71,455 Palestinians and wounded 171,347 since the October 7th, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas which killed 1,139 and abducted 150-200. In retaliation, Israel has displaced Gaza's entire population and deprived Gazans of food, medicine, and fuel, actions which rights experts, scholars and a UN inquiry have said amounts to genocide. The death toll among Israeli soldiers was 471 with 2,995 injured.