The European Union urged Israel Tuesday to allow international aid groups to deliver life-saving assistance to Palestinians, warning that relief in Gaza cannot reach the needed scale without them.
Senior EU officials have urged that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is continuing to deteriorate, as winter conditions set in and aid agencies face restrictions on their ability to operate.
In a joint statement, EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and commissioners Hadja Lahbib and Dubravka Suica said civilians in Gaza were facing worsening conditions, with heavy rain, falling temperatures and a lack of safe shelter.
They said children were still out of school and medical facilities were "barely functioning, with minimal staff and equipment."
The European Council also highlighted the urgent need for humanitarian assistance to reach Gaza. It stressed "the need for the rapid, safe and unimpeded delivery and sustained distribution of humanitarian aid, at scale, into and throughout Gaza."
It urged Israel not to proceed with the implementation of a law governing the registration of non-governmental organizations.
The joint statement said the EU was calling on Israel "to allow international NGOs to operate and deliver life-saving aid to civilians in need in Palestine."
The officials warned that restrictions on international aid organizations would have serious consequences. "Without these international NGOs, humanitarian aid cannot be delivered at the scale needed to prevent further loss of life in Gaza," the statement said.
They added that effective aid delivery required international NGOs to work in a "sustained and predictable way," warning that without such access, "life-saving assistance cannot reach people in need."
Since the cease-fire agreement came into effect, the Israeli army has committed hundreds of violations, killing 422 Palestinians and wounding 1,189 others, according to the Health Ministry.
The cease-fire halted Israel’s two-year war that killed nearly 71,400 Palestinians, most of them women and children, injured more than 171,200 others since October 2023, and left the enclave in ruins.
