By Stephanie Tran of Michael West Media

Under new registration requirements introduced by Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, NGOs have been required to submit lists of their Palestinian employees for review and to refrain from criticism of Israel.

A number of NGOs did not comply with the requirement to disclose the identities of their Palestinian staff, citing safety concerns amid reports that Israel has deliberately targeted and killed aid workers in Gaza.

As a result, the registrations of 37 international NGOs lapsed on 31 December 2025. The organisations will be required to withdraw by 1 March 2026 if their registrations are not renewed.

The aid ban comes as Israel has passed laws prohibiting the supply of water and electricity to UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

Michael West Media wrote to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Penny Wong, and Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) seeking clarification on Australia’s position regarding Israel’s suspension of humanitarian organisations operating in Gaza.

The questions included whether Australia intended to publicly condemn Israel’s decision to ban aid organisations; how the government assessed the move’s compatibility with international humanitarian law, including Israel’s obligations under the Geneva Conventions; and whether Australia would join or support diplomatic statements or measures alongside other countries calling for the ban to be lifted.

DFAT declined to provide a comment on the record, while Minister Wong did not respond to the request for comment.

In correspondence with MWM, DFAT instead provided a statement “for use in reporting, not for attribution”. In their response, the Department referred to a previous joint statement signed by Minister Wong calling on Israel to allow aid into Gaza.

International condemnation rises
The refusal to comment comes as the UN Secretary-General, multiple governments and at least 53 international NGOs have publicly condemned Israel’s suspension of 37 aid organisations from operating in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, warning it will severely restrict humanitarian access to Gaza and breach Israel’s obligations under international law.

The foreign ministers of Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement condemning  the aid ban, warning that

One in three healthcare facilities in Gaza will close if INGOs operations are stopped.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has called on Israel to reverse the measures, warning it “will further exacerbate the humanitarian crisis facing Palestinians”.

On Monday, seven European countries denounced Israel’s policies as incompatible with humanitarian principles and obligations under international law.

In a joint letter, 53 international aid organisations called the ban “a deliberate policy choice with foreseeable consequences”.

“More than 500 humanitarian workers have been killed since 7 October 2023. INGOs cannot transfer sensitive personal data to a party to the conflict since this would breach humanitarian principles, duty of care and data protection obligations,” the letter stated.

NGOs in limbo
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), one of the largest medical providers operating in Gaza, said it remained in a state of uncertainty.

“Our registration expired as of the 31st of December,” said Ashley Killeen, director of engagement at Médecins Sans Frontières Australia and New Zealand. “We are still trying to have dialogue with Israeli authorities to try and maintain some type of access.”

“At this point in time, we are still continuing to try and negotiate and stay in Gaza. It’s a fragile moment.”

Killeen said claims that MSF had failed to comply with the new registration process were inaccurate.

“We’ve fully engaged in the process announced in July, we submitted the majority of the required information,” she said.

However, Killeen said MSF was unwilling to comply with the requirement to provide the identities of its Palestinian staff due to safety concerns. She stated that

Providing the names of our staff is an ethical red line that we’re not willing to cross.

“Fifteen of our colleagues have been killed since the start of this war by Israeli forces. We have an obligation to safeguard the rights of our staff, and that is why we’re not willing to provide the staff list of our Palestinian colleagues in Gaza.”

Delivering 1 in 3 babies
MSF has operated in Gaza since 1989 and supports six hospitals and two field hospitals.

“We deliver one in three babies in Gaza. I don’t know what their solution would be if MSF were not allowed to operate,” Killeen said.

“The entire health system is decimated. Banning the little aid and services that’s available for those people in there is horrific.”

“We’re not finished yet; there’s a lot more to do.”

In the ER of Al-Rantisi hospital in Gaza City, our teams help 300 children receive medical care each day.

🎥 Dr Jennifer Hulse explains our vital services and what it would mean for Palestinians if Israel stops us from… pic.twitter.com/GENl2PnIyR

— MSF International (@MSF) January 9, 2026

ActionAid Australia has also warned that deregistration would severely undermine its ability to operate.

“Being de-registered will severely restrict our ability to bring food, medical supplies and other relief into Gaza, scale operations, and respond at the huge level of humanitarian need,” said Michelle Higelin, ActionAid Australia’s executive director.

“This action by the government of Israel undermines not just ActionAid,

but the entire humanitarian response architecture.

ActionAid has delivered humanitarian assistance and medical support to more than 650,000 displaced people over the past two years.

Impact ‘not abstract’
“The impact is not abstract — it is borne by families already surviving day to day,” Higelin said. “For people in Gaza, this decision will mean less water and food, little or no sanitation, reduced shelter and medical support and increasing exposure to health risks.”

Higelin warned that pregnant women would be particularly affected by the aid ban.

“As we support one of the only functioning maternity hospitals in Gaza, we are particularly concerned about the impacts on pregnant women who are already giving birth in unsterile conditions”

ActionAid reiterated MSF’s concerns regarding the disclosure of the identities of their Palestinian staff.

“We cannot comply with requirements that compel us to hand over sensitive personal data of Palestinian staff and their families or accept political and ideological conditions unrelated to humanitarian work,” Higelin said.

“No humanitarian organisation should be forced to choose between protecting its staff and continuing lifesaving assistance.”

Violation of international humanitarian law
Under international humanitarian law, occupying powers are obliged to ensure the provision of life saving aid to civilians in conflict zones. The 4th Geneva Convention and customary international law require that humanitarian assistance be allowed to reach civilians without undue obstruction.

The International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute has warned that deliberate obstruction of humanitarian assistance, resulting in hunger and widespread suffering, constitutes a grave violation of international humanitarian law and may amount to war crimes.

Amnesty International Australia has characterised Israel’s broader blockade and systematic obstruction of aid as not only a violation of humanitarian law but as potentially amounting to crimes against humanity, citing provisions of the Geneva Conventions that require occupying powers to ensure the food and medical supplies of the population are met unconditionally. 

“It’s an obligation under international law to provide humanitarian aid. Israel has an obligation to allow aid into Gaza,” said Killeen.

Killeen said MSF was urging the Australian government to do more than reiterate general support for aid access.

International law?
“What we would hope for from our government is that they continue to uphold the principles of international humanitarian law, and in doing so, they would advocate for the rights of organisations like MSF to continue providing aid to people in Gaza,” she said.

Higelin said the moment demanded decisive action from the Australian government.

“This is a watershed moment: one that will make or break the future of civic space and humanitarian assistance in Palestine, which Israel has been occupying unlawfully for decades.

“We urge UN agencies and donor governments, including Australia, to use all available leverage to secure the reversal of this decision. Independent, principled humanitarian operations must be protected to ensure civilians can receive the assistance they urgently need.

“Lives depend upon it.”

Stephanie Tran is a journalist with a passion for uncovering stories that hold power to account. With a background in both law and journalism, she has worked at The Guardian and as a paralegal, where she assisted Crikey’s defence team in the high-profile defamation case brought by Lachlan Murdoch. Her reporting has been recognised nationally, earning her the 2021 Democracy’s Watchdogs Award for Student Investigative Reporting and a nomination for the 2021 Walkley Student Journalist of the Year Award.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

If the coming election goes to Australia’s Labor party, Penny Wong is very likely to become Foreign Minister. So when she speaks, people across the region prick up their ears.

Without the least disrespect to her recent forebears, she could be one of the most acute, incisive and insightful FMs in recent history.

Whether she’ll be any more effective than them is another matter.

Australia has a long tradition of placing prominent front-benchers into the role, and then pointedly ignoring their efforts, their advice and their warnings. It’s as if government leaders find their greatest rival and send them trotting off around the globe, more to keep them from making mischief at home than to achieve anything noteworthy while they’re gone.

In Australia, it seems, foreign policy is domestic policy done outdoors.

If she achieves nothing more, Wong would be well served to look closely at the people supporting her, and to spend considerable effort re-organising and in fact re-inventing DFAT.

Its disconnection from other departments, especially Defence and PMO, has created an internal culture that spends more time feeding on itself than actually helping produce a persuasive or coherent foreign policy.

Ensuring foreign policy’s primacy at the cabinet table is a big ask, but it will be for naught if the department can’t deliver. There are significant structural matters to be dealt with.

‘Worst failure of foreign policy in the Pacific’: Labor launches scathing attack on government over Solomon Islands-China pact https://t.co/efbU2tM6Iu

— ABC News (@abcnews) April 19, 2022

Rolling development and aid into the department was a significant regression that hampered both sides. Volumes can be written about the need to distinguish development assistance from foreign policy, and many of them could be focused on the Pacific islands region.

The two are mostly complementary (mostly), but they must also be discrete from one another.

It’s far more complicated than this, but suffice it to say that development aid prioritises the recipient’s needs, while foreign relations generally prioritise national concerns. The moment you invert either side of that equation, you lose.

Exempli gratia: Solomon Islands.

It’s well known that Australia spent billions shoring up Solomon Islands’ security and administrative capacity. Surely after all that aid, they can expect the government to stay onside in geopolitical matters?

Applying the admittedly simplistic filter from the para above, the answer is an obvious no.

Aid is not a substitute for actual foreign relations, and foreign relations is definitely not just aid.

So is Penny Wong correct when she calls the CN/SI defence agreement a massive strategic setback? Sure.

Is she right to call Pacific Affairs Minister Zed Seselja “a junior woodchuck”, sent in a last minute attempt to dissuade Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare from signing the agreement?

The idea of a minister responsible for the complex, wildly diverse patchwork of nations spanning such a vast space has value. But in terms of resources and policy heft, Seselja rides at the back of the posse on a mule.

There are good reasons to devote an entire office to Pacific affairs. There are also blindingly good reasons to keep the Foreign Minister as the primary point of contact on matters of foreign policy.

That means the role—and yes, the existence—of the Pacific Affairs ministry needs a ground-up reconsideration. Notionally, it fulfills a critical role. But how?

It’s fair to say that Wong is more insightful than those who describe Solomon Islands as a fly-speck in the Pacific, or a Little Cuba (whatever the F that means). But in the past, Labor’s shown little insight into the actual value and purpose of foreign policy.

For the better part of four decades, neither Australian party was fussed at all about the fact that there had been few if any official visits between leaders. Prime Ministers regularly blew off Pacific Islands Forum meetings.

In Vanuatu’s case, the first ever prime ministerial visit to Canberra was in 2018. Why aren’t such meetings annual events?

Australia is rightly proud of its pre-eminence in development assistance in the Pacific islands. But that never was, and never will be, a substitute for diplomatic engagement. And you can’t have that without a functioning diplomatic corps whose presence is felt equally in Canberra and in foreign capitals.

But even that’s not enough. Penny Wong has yet to show in concrete terms how she plans to address what could accurately be called the greatest strategic foreign policy failure since WWII: Leaving Australia alone to guard the shop.

In 2003, George W. Bush was rightly vilified for characterising Australia’s role in the region as America’s Sheriff.

But the Americans weren’t the only ones who walked away, leaving Australia alone to engage with the region. The UK and the EU (minus France in their patch) rolled back their diplomatic presence substantially.

Even New Zealand agreed to restrict its engagement in large areas in deference to its neighbour. The most enduring presence was provided by organisations without any meaningful foreign policy role: UN development agencies and multilateral financial institutions.

Since the beginning of the War on Terror, there has been a consistent and often deliberate draw-down on the capital provided by democratic institutions, multilateral foreign policy, and indeed any collective course-setting among nations.

Post Cold-War democratic momentum has been squandered on an increasingly transactional approach to engagement that’s begun to look alarmingly like the spheres of influence that appeal so much to Putin and Xi.

This hasn’t happened in the Pacific islands alone. The UN has become an appendix in the global body politic, one cut away from complete irrelevance. ASEAN and APEC are struggling just as hard to find relevance, let alone purpose, as the Pacific Islands Forum or the Melanesian Spearhead Group.

Australia has “led” in the Pacific islands region by being the largest aid donor, blithely assuming that all the other kids in the region want to be like it. But that “leadership” masks a massive gap in actual influence in shaping the agenda in a region that’s larger and more diverse than any other in the world.

Want to know more? I have a whole chapter in my last book about it: https://t.co/RjggiClW5Z

— Joanne Wallis (@JoanneEWallis) March 30, 2022

The data’s there if people want it. This isn’t a particularly contentious… er, contention, if you’re among the far-too-small group of people who actually live in and care about the future of the region.

In a regional dynamic defined and dominated by transactional bilateralism, China holds all the aces. The only hope anyone has of slowing its growth in the region is through meaningful multilateralism that treats Pacific island countries as actual nations with national pride and individual priorities. Instead of silencing them, their voices should be amplified and defended, not by Australia alone, but by every other democratic nation with the means and the will to do so.

If we can’t respect the equal standing of nations, we can’t protect their integrity.

Scott Morrison may indeed be one of the worst exemplars of this blithe disregard for actual foreign policy engagement. He’s certainly won few friends with his world-class foot-dragging on climate change. America’s suddenly renewed interest in the region is an indication that they’ve woken up to the Bush administration’s mistakes.

It’s also clear they don’t trust Australia to play Sheriff any more. Kurt Campbell’s upcoming visit to the region is just the latest in a series of increasingly high profile tours of the region.

So yes, Penny Wong is justified in saying that China’s advances in the Pacific derive at least in part from Australia’s lack of a coherent and effective foreign policy.

But foreign policy is not made at home. It’s not Australia’s interests alone that matter. And subjugating Pacific nations in compacts of free association isn’t a substitute for actual policy making.

Pacific island nations will not defend Australia’s national interests unless they share those interests. The only way that Australia—and the world—can be assured they do is by actively listening, and by incorporating Pacific voices into the fabric of a renewed and revitalised global family.

Dan McGarry was previously media director at Vanuatu Daily Post/Buzz FM96. The Village Explainer is his semi-regular newsletter containing analysis and insight focusing on under-reported aspects of Pacific societies, politics and economics. His articles are republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz