SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Today, Israel announced it is barring more than two dozen aid organizations from working in Gaza for failing to meet new rules that it implemented earlier this year. The decisions affect groups providing food, medical aid and other lifesaving assistance in the region. One of those organizations is the Norwegian Refugee Council, or NRC, which has been operating in Gaza for years. Shaina Low is the communications adviser for the NRC and joins us now from Jerusalem. Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
SHAINA LOW: Thanks, Scott.
DETROW: What was your response when you were told that your organization and others, like, you know, Doctors Without Borders, have been forced to halt operations?
LOW: Well, first of all, I want to clarify one thing. Israel has announced that our registrations will be expiring at the end of the year, but that does not mean that we will be halting operations. And we will continue to be there to support communities on the ground in Gaza and throughout the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory as best as our teams can.
It doesn't come as a surprise to us, this announcement from today. We anticipated it, and it falls in line with what we've seen over the last two-plus years of Israeli authorities continually obstructing the operations of humanitarian aid organizations - impartial, independent, neutral, principled humanitarian agencies. We have had a valid registration for more than 15 years, and yet, our organization has been barred from bringing any aid into Gaza for more than nine months. And the reason we get is because we are not authorized, despite having a valid registration.
DETROW: I want to come back to how you're going to continue doing that work in a moment. But first, you know, from Israel's point of view, the government is saying that it's requiring information like staff lists and funding data and that yours and other groups are failing to meet those rules. Is that accurate from your perspective?
LOW: Well, we engaged in good faith with Israeli authorities, explaining to them why we could not provide them with national staff lists. They are a party to the conflict, and this is a conflict where we've seen over 400 aid workers be killed by Israel over the course of two years of hostilities. And so it's a safety concern to protect the identities of our staff.
On top of that, many of our organizations, if not all, are - either have bases and presence in the European Union or receive funding from the EU and EU states. And there are data protection laws that we are beholden to that would prevent us, and do prevent us, from sharing that type of data. We've worked with diplomats and donors to try and engage the Israeli authorities to productively find an alternative solution so that we can continue to provide humanitarian assistance. But we were not met with good faith from the Israeli authorities. We were not given any alternatives, and so this is where we are now.
DETROW: I just want to clarify. Were you saying that you were concerned that if you gave specific names to the Israeli government, those aid workers on the ground could be targeted by the government?
LOW: Yeah. Well, we've seen that hundreds of aid workers were killed over the last two years. And so, for us, it is a safety concern for our staff. And acknowledging who they are - it puts them at risk. Because we've seen that aid workers are just as unprotected, and at times, have been targeted by Israeli authorities.
DETROW: You said before that the NRC is going to continue doing its work. Walk me through what that looks like. Are you saying you'll still have people physically in Gaza or that you'll be doing work remotely going forward?
LOW: Well, we - most of our operations and most of our work is run by our national staff. Now, of course, these national staff members are Palestinians who live and are from Gaza. And so they will continue to operate. It means that we will not be able to bring international staff in, which is a huge loss because our international staff provides an extra layer of support, an extra layer of protection. And because they can rotate in and out, they come in fresh.
Whereas our staff in Gaza are concerned about their families. They're concerned about where they're going to find their next meals. They're concerned about making sure that they have a roof over their heads or at least some form of protection from the winter storms going on. And so it's going to be a huge loss to not have our staff there. But we know that our staff in Gaza, our national staff in Gaza, who survived two plus years of hostilities, will continue to respond and provide assistance as best as we can.
DETROW: Can you walk me through one or two specific things that you're worried would be an outcome once these restrictions go into place and once international staff isn't able to cycle in and out.
LOW: I mean, I think the number one thing that we're concerned about is the entry of aid. And so we already have faced challenges and haven't been able to get in aid for the last nine, 10 months. And it's something that we continue to call for. We continue to call for Israel to lift these restrictions, to open all of the crossings to allow much more aid to enter than the current rate.
And so that I think is a huge concern, as we've seen, you know, people whose tents have been flooded, all of their belongings have been lost. We've seen people die over the last several weeks because of winter storms, because of buildings collapsing, because of hypothermia when we know that mere miles away are truckloads of aid waiting to enter Gaza that we have available, and yet the Israeli authorities will not allow in.
DETROW: That's Shaina Low, a spokesperson for the Norwegian Refugee Council. Thank you so much for talking to us.
LOW: Thank you, Scott. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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