• Israel’s Supreme Court freezes ban on foreign aid organisations in enclave
• US public sympathy shifts to Palestinians over Israel, new Gallup poll reveals
CAIRO: Relentless Israeli attacks killed at least seven Palestinians in Gaza on Friday, medics said, adding to a death toll of at least 600 people killed by Israeli fire since a US-brokered ceasefire agreement came into effect last October.
Gaza’s health officials reported that in southern Gaza, five people were killed and several others were injured, some critically, in Israeli drone strikes. The strikes targeted two police checkpoints in Khan Yunis and in the Abu Hujair area northwest of the Bureij refugee camp later in the day, medics said.
Separately, an Israeli airstrike against a group of Palestinians in Gaza City’s Tuffah neighbourhood in northern Gaza killed two people and wounded several others.
Ban on NGOs frozen
Meanwhile, Israel’s Supreme Court decided in a ruling published on Friday to freeze a government ban on 37 foreign NGOs working in Gaza and the occupied West Bank pending a final decision.
“Without taking any position, a temporary interim order is hereby issued,” the court said in a ruling responding to a petition from more than a dozen NGOs, seeking to reverse the ban after Israel’s government revoked their status in Israel.
The decision theoretically allows the NGOs to work in Gaza and the West Bank until a final ruling, but aid groups are unsure about the freeze’s implementation.
Organisations like MSF, Oxfam, the Norwegian Refugee Council, and CARE were informed on Dec 30, 2025, that their Israeli registrations expired and they had 60 days to renew them by providing Palestinian staff lists.
If they failed to do so, they would have to cease operations in Gaza and the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, from March 1.
The NGOs, through AIDA, petitioned the Supreme Court after losing their charity registration in Israel, following a year-long refusal to disclose their Palestinian employees to Israeli authorities.
The court said in its ruling that there existed a “genuine legal dispute” due to the foreign NGOs’ responsibilities to their employees’ privacy under European law.
“We are still waiting to see how the injunction will be interpreted by the state and whether or not this will mean an increase in our ability to operate”, Athena Rayburn, AIDA director, told AFP, calling it “a step in the right direction”.
