Israel says the rules are aimed at preventing Hamas and other militant groups from infiltrating the aid organizations. But the organizations say the rules are arbitrary and warned that the new ban would harm a civilian population desperately in need of humanitarian aid.

Israel has claimed throughout the war that Hamas was siphoning off aid supplies, a charge the U.N. and aid groups have denied. The new rules, announced by Israel early this year, require aid organizations to register the names of their workers and provide details about funding and operations in order to continue working in Gaza.

The new regulations included ideological requirements — including disqualifying organizations that have called for boycotts against Israel, denied the Oct. 7 attack or expressed support for any of the international court cases against Israeli soldiers or leaders.

Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs said more than 30 groups — about 15% of the organizations operating in Gaza — had failed to comply and that their operations would be suspended. It also said that Doctors Without Borders, one of the biggest and best-known groups in Gaza, had failed to respond to Israeli claims that some of its workers were affiliated with Hamas or Islamic Jihad.

“The message is clear: humanitarian assistance is welcome — the exploitation of humanitarian frameworks for terrorism is not,” Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli said.

Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French acronym MSF, said Israel’s decision would have a catastrophic impact on their work in Gaza, where they support around 20% of the hospital beds and a third of births. The organization also denied Israel’s accusations about their staff.

“MSF would never knowingly employ people engaging in military activity,” it said.

‘Exhausted local staff’

While Israel claimed the decision would have limited impact on the ground. the affected organizations said the timing — less than three months into a fragile ceasefire — was devastating.

“Despite the ceasefire, the needs in Gaza are enormous and yet we and dozens of other organizations are and will continue to be blocked from bringing in essential life-saving assistance,” said Shaina Low, communications adviser for the Norwegian Refugee Council, which has also been suspended.

“Not being able to send staff into Gaza means all of the workload falls on our exhausted local staff,” Low said.

Some aid groups say they didn’t submit the list of Palestinian staff, as Israel demanded, for fear they’d be targeted by Israel, and because of data protection laws in Europe.

“It comes from a legal and safety perspective. In Gaza, we saw hundreds of aid workers get killed,” Low explained.

The decision not to renew aid groups’ licenses means offices in Israel and East Jerusalem will close, and organizations won’t be able to send international staff or aid into Gaza.

Israel says militants exploiting aid groups

According to the ministry, the decision means the aid groups will have their license revoked on Jan. 1, and if they are located in Israel, they will need to leave by March 1. They can appeal the decision.

The Israeli defense body that oversees humanitarian aid to Gaza, COGAT, said that the organizations on the list contribute less than 1% of the total aid going into the Gaza Strip, and that aid will continue to enter from more than 20 organizations that did receive permits to continue operating.

“The registration process is intended to prevent the exploitation of aid by Hamas, which in the past operated under the cover of certain international aid organizations, knowingly or unknowingly,” COGAT said in a statement.

This isn’t the first time Israel has tried to crack down on international humanitarian organizations. Throughout the war, Israel accused the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, of being infiltrated by Hamas, using its facilities and taking aid. The United Nations has denied it. UNRWA, the top U.N. agency working with Palestinians, has denied knowingly aiding armed groups and says it acts quickly to purge any suspected militants..

After months of criticism from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right allies, Israel banned UNRWA from operating on its territory in January. The U.S., formerly the largest donor to UNRWA, halted funding to the agency in early 2024.

NGOs say Israel vague over data use

Israel failed to confirm that the data collected from the new regulations wouldn’t be used for military or intelligence purposes, raising serious security concerns, said Athena Rayburn, the executive director of AIDA, an umbrella organization representing over 100 organizations that operate in the Palestinian territories. She noted that more than 500 aid workers have been killed in Gaza during the war.

“Agreeing for a party to the conflict to vet our staff, especially under the conditions of occupation, is a violation of humanitarian principles, specifically neutrality and independence,” she said.

Rayburn said organizations expressed their concerns and offered alternatives to submitting staff lists, such as third-party vetting, but that Israel refused to engage in any dialogue.

Palestinian girl killed in Gaza

A 10-year-old girl was killed and another person was wounded by Israeli fire in Gaza City near the Yellow Line that delineates areas under Israeli control, the territory’s Shifa Hospital said Tuesday.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the incident but have said troops operating near the Yellow Line will target anyone who approaches or threatens soldiers.

The Gaza Health Ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, said on Monday that 71,266 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, not including the girl. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count. The United Nations and independent experts consider the Health Ministry the most reliable source on war casualties. Israel disputes its figures but has not provided its own.

After starting their walk in Fort Worth, Texas, on Oct. 26, the group of about two dozen monks has made it to Georgia as they continue on a path to Washington, D.C., highlighting Buddhism’s long tradition of activism for peace.

The group planned to walk its latest segment through Georgia on Tuesday from the town of Morrow to Decatur, on the eastern edge of Atlanta. Marking day 66 of the walk, the group invited the public to a Peace Gathering in Decatur Tuesday afternoon.

The monks and their loyal dog Aloka are traveling through 10 states en route to Washington, D.C. In coming days, they plan to pass through or very close to Athens, Georgia; the North Carolina cities of Charlotte, Greensboro and Raleigh; and Richmond, Virginia, on their way to the nation’s capital city.

The group has amassed a huge audience on social media, with more than 400,000 followers on Facebook. Aloka has its own hashtag, #AlokathePeaceDog.

The group’s Facebook page is frequently updated with progress reports, inspirational notes and poetry.

“We do not walk alone. We walk together with every person whose heart has opened to peace, whose spirit has chosen kindness, whose daily life has become a garden where understanding grows,” the group posted recently.

The trek has not been without danger. Last month outside Houston, the monks were walking on the side of a highway near Dayton, Texas, when their escort vehicle, which had its hazard lights on, was hit by a truck, Dayton Interim Police Chief Shane Burleigh said.

The truck “didn’t notice how slow the vehicle was going, tried to make an evasive maneuver to drive around the vehicle, and didn’t do it in time,” Burleigh said at the time. “It struck the escort vehicle in the rear left, pushed the escort into two of the monks.”

One of the monks had “substantial leg injuries” and was flown by helicopter to a hospital in Houston, Burleigh said. The other monk with less serious injuries was taken by ambulance to another hospital in suburban Houston. The monk who sustained the serious leg injuries was expected to have a series of surgeries to heal a broken bone, but his prognosis for recovery was good, a spokeswoman for the group said.

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy that evolved from the teachings of Gautama Buddha, a prince turned teacher who is believed to have lived in northern India and attained enlightenment between the 6th and 4th centuries B.C. The religion spread to other parts of Asia after his death and came to the West in the 20th century. The Buddha taught that the path to end suffering and become liberated from the cycle of birth, death and reincarnation, includes the practice of non-violence, mental discipline through meditation and showing compassion for all beings.

While Buddhism has branched into a number of sects over the centuries, its rich tradition of peace activism continues. Its social teaching was pioneered by figures like the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh, who have applied core principles of compassion and non-violence to political, environmental and social justice as well as peace-building efforts around the world.

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Associated Press Writers Jeff Martin in Atlanta and Deepa Bharath in Los Angeles contributed.

At Paris’ Gare du Nord station, Jamie and Issy Gill scrambled to find a flight back to the U.K. after their Eurostar train to London was canceled, desperate to be reunited with their baby boy after a getaway in the French capital.

“We came for my 30th birthday,” Issy Gill said, wiping away tears.

Jamie Gill said they’d take a roundabout route back, with a flight via Birmingham on Wednesday.

Eurostar — which runs passenger trains between London and Paris and other European destinations — blamed “overhead power supply issues in the Channel Tunnel” and a failure aboard a train operated by LeShuttle, which transports vehicles and their passengers between the ports of Calais, France, and Folkestone, England.

On Tuesday afternoon, Eurostar said the tunnel was partially reopening but with only one of its two train lines, allowing Eurostar services to resume in the evening — although with expected continued delays and longer journey times than usual. It advised passengers to rebook their journeys on other days.

The 50-kilometer (32-mile) Channel Tunnel, more than half of it undersea, has revolutionized U.K.-Europe rail travel since its inauguration in 1994. But because it’s the only fixed cross-English Channel rail link, train services tend to be vulnerable to severe disruptions.

The Gare du Nord station heaved with frustrated passengers trying to book plane or bus tickets.

“I’m disgusted, disheartened,” said Sarah Omouri, a French traveler whose plans to celebrate the New Year in London were dashed.

“It’s been maybe a year since we’ve had a vacation,” she said. “We were made to get on the train, to get off, get on again, and get off again. Now we’re told that everything is fully booked for several days. It’s ruined.”

In London, would-be traveler John Paul had expected to enjoy a romantic river cruise in Paris and a trip to the Eiffel Tower with his partner, Lucy, but their Eurostar got turned back before reaching the continent.

“We got probably about an hour down the track, maybe 40 minutes, and then they basically said the train’s got to stop, because the train ahead got a braking issue,” the 46-year-old Paul said.

“They kept telling us that the driver was trying to fix the brakes on this other train and that the other trains were then backed up,” he said. “There’s no clear information and, obviously, we’ve lost a lot of money, haven’t we?”

The Channel Tunnel’s operator, Eurotunnel, said that the power supply problem started overnight Monday in part of the tunnel, impacting passenger and vehicle travel by rail in both directions.

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Associated Press writers Sylvie Corbet in Paris and Danica Kirka in London contributed to this report.