High Court of Justice 69668-02-26 AIDA The Association of International Development Agencies N’ Inter-Ministerial Team Responsible for International Humanitarian Organizations Registration

High Court of Justice 69668-02-26

High Court of Justice 81621-02-26

Judgment

Judge Gila Kanfi-Steinitz:

The petitions before us relate to Government Decision No. 2542 of December 9, 2024, and the procedure instituted pursuant thereto, which is the "Procedure for Registering Organizations and Providing Recommendations to Their Foreign Workers," which relates to the registration of international humanitarian organizations, and to the provision of recommendations to the foreign employees of the organizations.

The Petitioners, a series of international aid organizations, request that the Respondents be instructed to give a reason as to why their refusal to register them in Israel in accordance with the procedure will not be revoked; why the information requirement in section 5.1(8) of the Procedure, which requires the disclosure of the personal details of the organization's employees, will not be revoked, and why the Respondents' demand to cease the Petitioners' activities in the Judea and Samaria area and the Gaza Strip, in light of their lawful registration with the Palestinian Authority, will not be canceled.

The Ottoman Settlement [Old Version] 1916Background to the Petition

12-34-56-78 Chekhov v.  State of Israel, P.D.  51 (2)

1. For many years, in the Judea and Samaria region and in the Gaza Strip, international organizations have been operating to provide humanitarian aid to the civilian population (hereinafter: aid organizations). In the past, the status of international workers of aid organizations was regulated by the Population and Immigration Authority's Procedure No. 5.3.0025 - "Handling the Entry of International Workers of Humanitarian NGOs into the State of Israel" (hereinafter: the Old Procedure).  According to this procedure, the issuance of residency and work visas to employees of aid organizations was conditional on the employer being "registered and approved" by the Department of International Relations at the Ministry of Social Affairs; and on condition that a recommendation was received in his case.
2. With the outbreak of the war, after the October 2023 shiva, the processing of applications for the registration of aid organizations and the provision of recommendations to their employees according to the old procedure was suspended. Against the background of this delay, Petitioner 1, which incorporates international aid organizations‑operating in the area (hereinafter: the Petitioner), filed a previous petition (High Court of Justice 32300-10-24) [Nevo].  This petition was deleted after on December 9, 2024, Government Resolution No. 2542 was passed, which deals with "International NGOs whose main activity is vis-à-vis Palestinian residents with the aim of assisting their welfare" (hereinafter: the Government Decision).  The government decision stipulates that an inter-ministerial team will be established headed by the Director General of the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism (hereinafter: the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs), which will include representatives from the National Economic Counter-Terrorism Bureau of the Ministry of Defense, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, the Population and Immigration Authority, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the General Security Service, the Israel Police, the Ministry of National Security, the Ministry of Social Affairs, and the Ministry of Settlement and National Missions (hereinafter: the Inter-Ministerial Team).).  It was also decided that the responsibility for registering aid organizations and providing recommendations to their employees would be transferred from the Ministry of Social Affairs to the inter-ministerial team, and would be regulated in a new procedure that would be formulated by‑
3. On March 9, 2025, the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs published the "Procedure for Registering Organizations and Providing Recommendations to Their Foreign Employees" (hereinafter: the Procedure). This procedure establishes a ‑two-stage process: in the first stage, an organization's application to register as an "international‑ humanitarian non-governmental organization ‑whose main activity is vis-à-vis Palestinian residents with the aim of assisting their welfare" is examined; In the second stage, individual requests for recommendations to the organization's foreign employees are examined, as a prerequisite for applying to the Population and Immigration Authority for residency and work visas "Type B/1 of the International Organization Rules."

Copied from Nevo      The procedure further details a series of considerations that may lead to the rejection of an application for registration of an organization, or the provision of a recommendation to a foreign worker, including: denial of the existence of aIsrael's Law as a Jewish and Democratic State; incitement to racism; support for an armed struggle by an enemy state or a terrorist organization against the State of Israel; declaring the organization a terrorist organization or maintaining ties with a declared terrorist organization; Illegal activity of the organization and more (section 7 of the procedure).  Registration of an organization as a humanitarian aid organization, or the provision of a positive recommendation to a foreign worker, by the inter-ministerial team, means that there is no reasonable basis to assume that the aforementioned considerations are met in the organization or the foreign worker (see definitions of "Registration of Organizations/Registered Organization"); "A positive recommendation for a foreign worker"; and "a negative recommendation to a foreign worker" in section 3 of the procedure).

4. In order to register the organization in Israel, the organization is required to submit an application that includes the organization's details, a description of its activities, the names of the organizations with which it operates, a certificate of its activity on behalf of the Palestinian Authority (unless it operates only in the Gaza Strip), and more. The demand that is at the center of the petitions is that set out in section 5.1(8) of the procedure, which instructs the organization to provide the following details:

"The details of the organization's representative in Israel, as well as a list of all the organization's employees involved in the management and actual implementation of the work plan, including Palestinian workers and foreign workers in respect of whom a request for a recommendation in accordance with clause 5.2 will be submitted at the same time.  The list shall include full names, passport numbers (for foreigners), ID number (for Palestinian workers) and contact information" (hereinafter: Section 5.1(8) or the Information Requirement).