MÉDECINS Sans Frontières says it will not send a list of names of staff operating in the occupied Palestinian territories to the Israeli authorities. News that MSF was considering the move to satisfy part of a new Israeli law that aims to restrict aid work leaked on 24 January, stirring controversy and criticism.
By Riley Sparks
Aid workers say the new law, which mandates the registration of international NGOs working with Palestinians and bans those who don’t comply, aims to silence advocacy and manipulate the aid response – part of a broader effort by the Israeli authorities to replace principled efforts with a more compliant system that aligns with their political and military goals.
At the end of December, Israel suspended 37 NGOs working in Gaza for refusing to comply with the law, giving a final deadline of 28 February to meet registration requirements or stop working.
Groups, including MSF, argued forcefully that staff, particularly Palestinians, would be put at risk if they complied with the new law and handed over personal information to authorities waging a military campaign that has killed more aid workers than any other in modern history, including 15 MSF staff.
MSF had refused to comply and was facing a ban. However, in a 21 January letter to COGAT (the Israeli military body responsible for coordinating with aid organisations), MSF indicated it would be willing to send the names of some staff who had consented, hoping to buy time to keep working.
The letter later leaked, kicking off public controversy and provoking internal and external criticism of the decision, which marked a break with most major aid organisations, who are continuing to refuse to comply.
For much of last year, the law’s looming enforcement has added another layer of chaos to a system beset by what aid workers have described as the deliberate application by Israel of uncertainty, obstruction, and violence. With a final deadline approaching, humanitarians have struggled to find a way forward.
Ultimately, MSF said in a statement on 30 January that it had decided not to share the list – after a week of debate and unsuccessful efforts to get Israeli officials to agree to terms that included guarantees about staff safety and the independence of MSF’s operations, as well as to end what it described as an escalating propaganda campaign against the group.
MSF will now need to work out how to continue to operate if Israeli authorities use the law to ban the group and increase their already significant obstruction of its work.
That work relies to a great extent on being able to bring specialised equipment, medical supplies, and staff into Gaza. All were routinely blocked by Israeli authorities before the registration threat.
“There are ways through this. It’s not going to be perfect. It’s going to be very difficult,” a Palestinian MSF staffer, who requested anonymity, told The New Humanitarian. “This will mean that the efforts that have been invested into these negotiations with Israel, and making the decision and all of this registration mess, will end up being channelled in more productive ways.”
Forcing an impossible choice
The law offered a choice: Agree to demands that hand Israeli authorities another tool to control and choke off aid work in Palestine, with no guarantee that they will uphold the deal – or refuse, and potentially watch people starve, freeze, and die without medical care.
Israeli authorities have weaponised this ethical dilemma, using it to try to extract compliance and divide humanitarians, one MSF staffer said: “Israel has taken the one thing that drives all of us in one direction, and has managed to make us knock heads with each other.”
“The situation is so extreme and so horrendous, so illegal, and so against humanity, it calls for desperate reactions and desperate responses,” they said. “The whole thing is characterised by desperation and fear – and that’s how Israel operates.”
The vaguely worded rules allow Israeli authorities to shut down aid groups essentially at will.
Several MSF staff told The New Humanitarian they felt complying would have crossed ethical red lines, threatened their work and safety, and set a precedent allowing Israeli authorities to pressure other groups – all without guaranteeing access.
Others argued that after holding out for months, the group, a critical part of Gaza’s shattered medical system, needed to take what seemed to be the last option to keep caring for patients.
The Israeli government has said the new registration process is needed to prevent what they claim is infiltration of humanitarian groups by militants and widespread diversion of aid – claims that are not supported by evidence and which have been refuted by the UN, other humanitarians, and senior US officials, among others.
The vaguely worded rules allow Israeli authorities to shut down aid groups essentially at will. They ban employing or associating with anyone who has called for a boycott of Israel or supported prosecuting Israeli soldiers accused of war crimes, or who “promotes delegitimisation campaigns” against Israel.
The job of interpreting those terms is assigned to a government panel overseen by hardline minister for diaspora affairs, Amichai Chikli, who has described established aid groups as “terror-supporting organisations”.
Organisations based in Europe have also said that transferring the data would breach EU privacy laws.
Aid workers noted that Israeli authorities have demanded unregistered INGOs not only stop bringing goods and personnel through Israel, but are trying to force them to stop working in Palestine – an effort to impose Israeli domestic law on Palestinian territory that would amount to a significant expansion of Israel’s claimed authority. It’s unclear how Israel hopes to enforce this.
Enforcement began before the rules were supposed to be in effect, with authorities denying requests from many groups starting in mid-2025 on the grounds that they were unregistered.
At the end of December, Israel gave a final deadline: 37 unregistered groups would be banned and ordered to stop working in Gaza after 28 February. Non-compliant organisations would see their staff and imports blocked – although in practice this has already been happening to varying degrees throughout Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, and systematically since mid-2025.
In addition to MSF, the 37 include most other established aid groups in Gaza – among them the Norwegian Refugee Council, Medical Aid for Palestinians, and the American Friends Service Committee, the Quaker aid agency whose connection to Gaza dates back to 1948.
Wrestling with being forced to decide between complying with Israel’s dictates or ending life-saving operations led to the high-level decision at MSF to offer to share some staff names. Israeli authorities responded cautiously: Chikli, the minister responsible for overseeing registration, called the decision a “step in the right direction”, while senior security officials said they would “wait and see”.
Inside MSF, many staffers said pulling out would be catastrophic, and argued that compliance was a necessary compromise. Others framed it as one of the organisations that has been most vocal about the on-the-ground reality in Gaza caving to Israeli demands.
The needs in Gaza remain staggering. At least 100,000 children are acutely malnourished, and more than one million people are in need of shelter, the UN reports. Meanwhile, winter weather and appalling living conditions are driving a surge in severe respiratory diseases, according to Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), one of the banned groups. At least seven people have died from the winter cold.
International NGOs are responsible for much of the response, including all of the treatment centres for severely malnourished children, 60% of field hospitals, and about three-quarters of shelter aid. MSF operates Gaza’s only burns centre, and has taken on an increasing role in water delivery.
Thousands of patients under MSF’s care are using temporary external fixators – devices attached to bones and used to help heal wounds – and will need surgery to remove them. Due to the dire healthcare situation, many are already facing infection risks after being forced to leave the fixators in for far longer than intended. MSF staff currently do many of those procedures. Forcing them out will leave thousands of patients without access to care and vulnerable to infection, which can often mean death or amputations in Gaza.
None of that can be replaced, aid workers told The New Humanitarian.
Pitfalls of compliance
When the conversation about registration first came up, Mohammed Abu Mughaisib was working as MSF’s deputy medical coordinator in Gaza. “I said, ‘Give my name. I don’t care,’” recalled Abu Mughaisib, who left Gaza in late 2025 and now works with MSF in Ireland.
He argued that Israeli officials likely already know most or all of the information demanded. He saw the request as a way of forcing compliance for its own sake – another way of exerting power over humanitarians and Palestinians.
The consequences of leaving far outweighed the risks of complying, he concluded. “Patients, doctors, vaccinations, pregnant women, burned children, amputated children – just list them. It will never end,” he said.
“We are all aware of how Israel operates. First, it’s going to be the staff list. Next, it’s going to be their locations… With Israel, it’s never enough.”
Instead, he pointed to states and global institutions that have supported or been unwilling to try to stop Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, which has been described as genocide by a UN commission of inquiry and international law and genocide experts.
Others inside MSF expressed deep frustration with the initial decision. “We’ve been proud to be part of this organisation that is advocating for Palestine and not refraining from calling things what they are… for bearing witness to these atrocities, for saying that they have witnessed a genocide,” a Palestinian MSF staffer told The New Humanitarian. “And then to comply with these obscene demands of this genocidal entity and hand over the data to this occupying power – it’s insane.”
They said that it was impossible to meaningfully consent if they believed saying yes could threaten their own security and sense of ethics, but saying no meant risking the lives of their patients, and potentially their own jobs and income.
Several said they expected authorities would have made additional demands, noting that after MSF’s initial letter, Israeli security officials insisted that Israel wanted not just the names of MSF staff but also Gaza Ministry of Health employees supported by the aid group.
“We are all aware of how Israel operates,” the same staffer said. “First, it’s going to be the staff list. Next, it’s going to be their locations… With Israel, it’s never enough,” they said. This pattern should be familiar to MSF and other experienced groups, they added.
Successful registration has also offered no guarantee of access: Some registered INGOs are still seeing their requests denied by Israel, despite agreeing to the terms. At least one registered organisation has been forced to fire staffers at the request of authorities, several aid workers familiar with the situation said.
Given past experience, several aid workers have suggested it was a mistake for humanitarians to engage in the discussion about registration at all – let alone to approach the process as if authorities who have systematically tried to weaponise and obstruct their work might, this time, operate in good faith. “The unified approach should have been to not engage,” a senior aid worker with another organisation working on the Gaza response said.
On 29 January, Israeli authorities said they intend to cut the amount of aid they allow into Gaza from all groups, registered or not. “Israel is still strangling life out of the Strip,” the Palestinian MSF staffer said.
Edited by Eric Reidy.
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