GENEVA: Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said on Friday that it would not give Israel the lists of staff it needed to keep access to Gaza and the West Bank. This was because the charity had not been able to get guarantees about the safety of its teams.
Israel told 37 international groups last month that they could no longer serve in the Palestinian territories unless they followed new criteria, such as giving information about their employees. MSF is one of these groups that helps and supports hospitals in Gaza.
The relief groups believe that providing this kind of personnel information could be dangerous, alluding to the hundreds of aid workers who were killed or hurt during the two-year conflict in Gaza. The ministry in charge of registering people in Israel’s diaspora did not react right away to a request for comment. Israel has maintained in the past that the registers were meant to stop Palestinian armed groups from stealing aid. Aid groups disagree that a lot of aid has been redirected.
Last week, MSF said it would be willing to give a limited list of Palestinian and international staff who had consented to do so, as long as the list was only used for administrative purposes and didn’t put its team in danger.
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