Israeli coercion is being met with a shrug of the shoulders - Article by Chris Doyle in Arab News, 5 January 2026
Far from Gaza being flooded with aid, millions of Palestinians are flooded with rain and sewage. Far from Gaza benefiting from a ceasefire, its people still face being bombed and killed.
The genocide in Gaza continues, as does the strategy of keeping the outside world out. Journalists, diplomats, and human rights investigators cannot enter. Israel has also taken steps to prevent even the last of the genuine humanitarian entities from operating in the enclave.
Other than Palestinians themselves, for the past 20 months it has been doctors and aid workers who have provided a huge share of the detailed information on the genocide in Gaza. This has consistently exposed the lies, falsehoods, and exaggerations the Israeli hasbara industry has propagated, not least the strenuous denials that nobody in Gaza is starving or that Israel was not targeting hospitals.
The first target had been UNRWA, the largest agency operating in Gaza. Israeli leaders had always hated the UN aid organization because for them it kept the issue of Palestine refugees alive. But an additional cause for vindictive hate was that UNRWA was doing so much to keep Palestinians alive in Gaza. It was undermined by a deliberate Israeli campaign that sought not just to defund it but also prevent it from operating anywhere in Palestine.
Israel has almost won this part of its genocidal war. Given the US will not commit to allowing UNRWA to operate in Gaza, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio even claiming UNRWA was Hamas, traditional donors to the agency are backing off. Why fund a body that is about to be buried?
Other humanitarian actors always knew they would be next in line, not least due to the relentless smear campaigns Israeli outfits conducted. Agencies were accused of being Hamas fronts with no evidence whatsoever. Access for staff and workers became ever harder, and bureaucratic obstacles were the stuff of nightmares.
Then there was the sheer gall of Israel consistently taking credit for the work of others. At best Israel just permits aid to enter, but in its propaganda all too often it claims to have provided such aid. The starver pretends to be the feeder.
Few hold Israel to account. The legal reality is that Israel, as the occupying power, has always been legally responsible for the well-being of Palestinians in the occupied state of Palestine. The UN and international nongovernmental organizations have been carrying out the tasks Israel should have been doing itself.
The deployment of the misleadingly named Gaza Humanitarian Foundation was a shameful low point, as this militarized body created death traps at distribution sites. The aim to eject humanitarian actors had been made explicitly clear and this is why Israel announced it would impose draconian measures on these agencies over a year ago.
This is now being implemented with 37 being informed that their registration would expire on the last day of 2025. They have 60 days from then to cease operations.
Why did these aid groups refuse? Israel was compelling them to breach their independence and neutrality by handing over details of all their staff. They were being forced not to cooperate with international judicial bodies such as the International Criminal Court. They could not pursue advocacy on behalf of Palestinian beneficiaries. All of this would constitute a major breach of global humanitarian principles. Israeli officials knew this would mean that household names such as Doctors without Borders, Save the Children, and Oxfam would not be able to continue.
International nongovernmental organizations provide over half of all food assistance in Gaza, as well as managing or funding 60 percent of all field hospitals. They deliver more than half of all food assistance in Gaza, run or support 60 percent of field hospitals, and handle treatment for children with acute malnutrition. These groups have been delivering $1 billion of aid every year to Palestine.
Aid workers have been targeted during the genocide. Over 500 humanitarian workers have been killed since Oct.7, 2023. Even though Israeli forces know the exact coordinates of safe houses for humanitarian workers, on occasions they were still bombed.
This also applies to the other part of Palestine, the West Bank. Here the health situation is not yet as calamitous, but given Israeli intentions and increased level of military and settler violence, this will not remain the case for long.
Will major donor powers react? The diplomatic shrug of the shoulders can be seen by perusing the many press releases expressing concern. The Trump process has taken over. Aid is meant to be coordinated by this US-Israeli dominated Civil-Military Coordination Center, effectively allowing the genocidal regime to run the humanitarian program.
This is letting the wolf run the chicken coop. Few leaders challenge this even as the humanitarian situation in Gaza remains atrocious.
The persistent agenda of many Israel ministers is to render Gaza so uninhabitable that Palestinians in the enclave will jump at any chance to make an exit. It would not be voluntary but the result of Israel engineering a coercive environment designed to produce this result.
