Palestine - Israel Freezes Visas for Humanitarian Workers, Face Deportation : Emma Graham-Hamilton / The Guardian

Article shared by Tom McDermott

Israel has stopped issuing visas and frozen renewals for staff of humanitarian agencies, including country directors. 

Click here for the article in the Guardian

Excerpt:

"The bar on visas for foreign staff is compounded by a ban on Palestinian staff from the West Bank entering either Jerusalem or Gaza. This means that teams are fragmented geographically when they are facing the biggest crisis in decades."

"The trickle of aid getting into Gaza is not enough to relieve severe shortages of food, clean water and basic medical supplies, and doctors say that children have started dying from malnutrition.

“We have 15 country directors without visas, who have had to leave, or are preparing to leave,” Arouri said, adding that although teams were trying to work remotely, the separation of key staff was “strangling” operations. “You need them on the ground, with access to Gaza.”