Israel's High Court of Justice rejected a petition by AIDA, an umbrella organization representing 19 international non-governmental aid organizations operating in Gaza and the West Bank, and upheld government registration requirements that force aid groups to provide lists of their local employees, including Palestinian staff members, as part of the permit process. The court gave the organizations a final 30-day period to submit the required documentation, including employee lists, and said organizations that fail to submit the materials will be required to cease operations in Gaza and the West Bank immediately.
Who Holds the Power
The ruling leaves the state apparatus in control of who gets to operate humanitarian work in Gaza and the West Bank. The court said the information requirement is a limited and proportionate security measure that derives from the state's duty to protect its security and the security of its residents while allowing humanitarian activity to continue, and said security screening falls within the core sovereign powers of the state. In other words, the gatekeepers keep the gate.
The petition followed Israel's request that the organizations provide lists of their local employees under its NGO registration and security screening procedures. The organizations refused and challenged the registration framework. The government said the framework is a security-driven regulatory system designed to ensure humanitarian aid is delivered safely, transparently and without exploitation by terrorist organizations, and said it was based on fears that some Gaza-based NGOs have operational overlap with Hamas or other terror groups. The procedure prohibits the operation of organizations linked to terrorism, incitement, delegitimization campaigns against Israel, Holocaust denial or denial of the October 7 massacre.
Who Pays the Price
The people at the bottom of this hierarchy are the aid workers and the communities relying on them. Many of the NGOs, including Doctors Without Borders, have said sharing staff information could jeopardize staff safety, citing the number of aid worker deaths in Gaza. That concern sits directly against the state's demand for more paperwork and more control over who can work, where, and under what conditions.
As of March 2026, 129 registration applications had been submitted to the inter-ministerial team. Of those, 30 were approved, 19 were denied, 47 remained under review and 34 organizations had yet to begin the registration process. The numbers show a system built around delay, filtering and administrative pressure, with humanitarian access hanging on the decisions of an inter-ministerial team.
What the Authorities Call 'Security'
Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Minister Amichai Chikli welcomed the ruling, saying, "The rejection of the petition sends a clear and unequivocal message - the State of Israel will not allow terrorist activity to operate under the guise of humanitarian aid." Director General of the Ministry Avi Cohen-Scali said, "We will continue acting decisively to ensure that only legitimate and transparent organizations are permitted to participate in humanitarian operations in the region."
Those statements frame the issue as a matter of legitimacy and transparency, while the court's order makes the consequences blunt: submit employee lists within 30 days or stop operating in Gaza and the West Bank immediately. The result is a legal mechanism that turns humanitarian access into a conditional privilege, managed through registration, screening and state approval.
The petition was rejected on May 20, 2026, and the compliance period was granted the same day. As of March 2026, the registration process had already sorted organizations into approved, denied, under review, and not yet started categories, leaving aid work subject to the machinery of state permission.