High Court of Justice 69668-02-26 AIDA The Association of International Development Agencies N’ Inter-Ministerial Team Responsible for International Humanitarian Organizations Registration - part 2

It was clarified in the procedure that aid organizations registered with the Ministry of Social Affairs and Social Affairs under the old procedure must submit a full application for registration in accordance with the new procedure by September 9, 2025 (section 10.5 and section 3.8 of the procedure), a period that was later extended until December 31, 2025; that the team will only consider applications submitted in a full and proper manner (clause 6.1 of the procedure); and that upon the expiration of an organization's registration, it will have to remove its employees from the Judea and Samaria area, the Gaza Strip and the State of Israel within 60 days (Section 8.4 of the Procedure).

5. The Petitioners refused to accept the information demand, and contacted the Respondents, independently and through the Petitioner, with a request to reach an arrangement that would allow them to continue their activities without placing them, according to them, at risk of breaching their obligations under the privacy protection laws of their countries of residence. The inter-ministerial team insisted on completing the missing information, while emphasizing that the information was required for security considerations, and ensured that the information received would be stored and processed in accordance withthe Protection of Privacy Law and its regulations.  Since the information was not provided, each of the petitioning organizations received, on December 30, 2025, a notice of the expiration of its registration as an international aid organization in accordance with the old procedure on December 31, 2025.  The announcements stated that the organizations must cease their activities and remove their employees from the territory of the State of Israel, as well as from the Judea and Samaria area and the Gaza Strip, within 60 days.  At the same time, it was clarified that if the organization is interested in registering in accordance with the procedure, it must submit a full application as soon as possible.  After another attempt by some of the petitioners to conduct a dialogue with the respondents in order to avoid providing the information was unsuccessful, the petitions were filed.

Summary of the petitioners' arguments

6. The petitions are directed at two interrelated demands of the respondents. The first is the information requirement in section 5.1(8) of the procedure, which, as stated, obligates the aid organizations to provide the respondents with the identification details and contact details of their employees, including their Palestinian employees; The second is the manner in which section 8.4 of the procedure is implemented, according to which the expiration of an organization's registration - including due to‑non-compliance with the information requirement - will result in the termination of the organization's activity and the removal of its employees from the territory of the State and the region.  The petitioners claim that these demands lack authority, contradict the obligations imposed on them in their countries of origin in terms of privacy protection, and even contravene the principles of international humanitarian law.
7. In terms of authority , it was argued that the respondents exceeded the scope of their authority when they ordered, in practice, the cessation of the civilian activities of the aid organizations in the territories of the Palestinian Authority. According to the petitioners, this activity is covered by the autonomy granted to the Palestinian Authority in the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement‑on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (1995) (hereinafter: the Oslo Accords).  In this context, the petitioners refer to Appendix III to the agreement, which transfers to the responsibility of the Palestinian Authority many civil areas, including the registration of associations and aid organizations, as well as to law in the area, namely the Palestinian Non-Profit Law of 2000, which regulates the registration of foreign associations.  According to their approach, the respondents lack the authority to intervene in the registration and licensing of the activities of aid organizations in the territories of the Authority; and their directive, according to which the expiration of the registration in Israel will lead to the cessation of the activities of the organizations and the removal of their employees from the territories of the Authority, is devoid of authority.  The petitioners are also of the opinion that Government Resolution 2542, which outlined the boundaries of the sector, did not authorize the inter-ministerial team to order the cessation of the activities of the aid organizations, and that a review of the language of section 8.4 of the procedure shows that at most this is an authorization to remove foreign workers from the area and the Gaza Strip, and not the authority to cease the organization's activities or close its offices.

In the context of a response to the respondents' preliminary response (which was submitted without permission to do so, and to this effect later), the petitioners intensified their arguments and argued that the inter-ministerial team, which derives its authority from a government decision alone, does not have the authority to demand the information - since a government decision cannot serve as an independent normative source of infringement of basic rights.  According to them, the demand for information - which entails a violation of the constitutional right to privacy of the organization's employees - cannot be based solely on a government decision, and since it has not been anchored in primary legislation, it lacks authority.

8. The petitions attack the procedure on another level - the violation of privacy and the attitude towards the European Data Protection Regulation (hereinafter: GDPR or the European Regulation), to which most of the petitioning organizations are subject in light of their place of residence. According to them, this subordination prevents them from complying with the information requirement, since the disclosure of their employees' details to the State of Israel constitutes an "international transfer" of personal data to a third country, in a manner that may violate the provisions of the‑GDPR and expose them to significant sanctions - administrative fines, orders to stop the processing of their employees' data, and civil lawsuits by employees.  The Petitioners recognize that Article V of the GDPR allows the transfer of personal data to a country that is not a member of the European Union, to the extent that the European Commission has determined that that country guarantees an essentially equivalent level of protection (compliance); and are also aware that Israel was indeed given such a compliance decision in 2011 and ratified in 2024 (hereinafter: the Conformity Decision).  However, according to them, the information requirement in our case " exceeds the boundaries of the compliance decision", both in the territorial sense, while the recognition of compliance is limited to the territory of the State of Israel and does not extend to the area of Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip; and in the substantive sense, when the information is requested for the purpose of conducting a "vetting" of the organization's employees, which involves processing that is not automatic but manual, performed by humans instead of a computerized system, in a manner that also exceeds the boundaries of compliance given to Israel.

The petitioners also rely (also in response to the response they submitted without being given permission) on a letter from the European Commission and position papers of the relevant competent authorities in Norway and the Netherlands, according to which, it is claimed, the information requirement deviates from key principles enshrined in European regulation, such as the principles of fairness, transparency, information minimization and the pinnacle of the purpose.  In particular, it was argued that there is a real difficulty in giving consent to the transfer of the information.  Subsequently, the Petitioners complain that the Respondents did not present a concrete reason for the necessity of collecting the information in its broad form, and believe that there is no rational connection between the demand and the declared security purpose; that the same goal can be achieved by less harmful means, and in particular through the internal screening mechanisms employed by the organizations themselves (interviews, background checks, cross-checking of names against international sanctions lists); and that the profound damage to the activity of assistance to the local population due to the cessation of the activities of the organizations far exceeds the alleged security benefit.

9. The third and final level on which the petitioners rely is duties under international law. The petitioners claim that the demand to provide the details of the workers is contrary to the principles of international law, and refer to Article 59 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (hereinafter: the Geneva Convention or the Convention), which enshrines the obligation to facilitate and facilitate the assistance activities of the organizations; and Article 63 of the Convention, which prohibits interference in the organizational structure in a manner that would impair the ability of organizations to provide assistance.  According to them, subjecting their activities to Israeli registration conditions contingent on the disclosure of their employees' details to the authorities, and ordering the respondents to cease their activities if they do not comply with them, violate the principle of neutrality of the organizations, create a structural connection between them and the governmental apparatuses of one of the parties to the conflict, and thwart the purpose of humanitarian aid.  It was also argued that the respondents' demands were tainted by unreasonableness and disproportionality.  Finally, the petitioners emphasize the practical implications of the procedure: in their view, the demand to cease their activities in the Gaza Strip and the Judea and Samaria area means a dramatic reduction in the deployment of humanitarian assistance at a time when the population's distress has reached its peak, in a manner that is inconsistent with Israel's obligations under the law of armed conflict and‑ international humanitarian law.

Summary of the Respondents' Arguments

10. The respondents are of the opinion that the petitions should be dismissed, both for procedural reasons and on their merits. On the procedural level, it was argued that there was a significant delay in the filing of the petitions, when the procedure was published on March 9, 2025, and the decision in the petitioners' case was made on December 30, 2025, and despite this, the petitions were filed only at the end of February 2026.  It was further alleged that the petitioners filed their petitions on the basis of a lack of factual basis and while concealing facts from the court, including the fact that many aid organizations registered in European Union countries, including those that are members of the Petitioner, responded to the request for information.

In the body of the petitions, the respondents argue that the procedure and the team's work are based on the decision of the political echelon regarding the need to regulate, for reasons of foreign policy and national security, the registration of aid organizations between the‑nationalists operating in the region and the entry of their workers into Israel.  They emphasize that this is an area that is at the core of the executive branch's discretion, especially since the arrangement directly relates to foreign policy issues and sensitive security issues, and therefore the scope for judicial intervention is limited.

11. On the level of authority, the respondents argue that the procedure does not create a new authority, but rather changes the manner in which an existing authority is exercised. According to them, in the past, aid organizations were also required to register with the Ministry of Social Affairs as a condition for licensing their activities and obtaining visas for their employees, without causing any difficulty.  The new arrangement transfers the registration and recommendation component from the Ministry of Social Affairs to the ‑inter-ministerial team that also brings together security agencies, but does not change the starting point that the activities of the organizations require Israeli approval.  On the basis of this authorization, the organizations may request individual requests necessary for their activities, including requests for stay and work visas for their foreign workers or requests to transfer aid shipments to the Judea and Samaria area and the Gaza Strip through Israeli border crossings.  The respondents also referred to the authority of the Minister of the Interior in all matters relating to entry and that he was in Israel.  Therefore, according to them, even if the Palestinian Authority is authorized to register the organizations in the field of domestic law, this does not detract from the authority of the State of Israel to exercise its powers at the gates of the state, as well as with regard to the individual requests of the organizations.
12. With regard to the claims regarding the violation of the right to privacy and the apparent contradiction with the‑GDPR, the respondents admit that the provision of the identification details of the organization's employees constitutes a certain violation of their privacy, but according to them, this is a limited and proportionate infringement, which is required for a security purpose of the first order - to prevent terrorist elements from taking over the means of humanitarian aid. The Respondents are of the opinion that there is no basis for the Petitioners' claim of a "normative trap" vis-à-vis European law: they refer to the fact that many organizations subject to‑the GDPR have agreed to fulfill the information requirement and have provided the authorities with the required details, as well as to the European Commission's compliance decision, which, according to them, applies to the transfer of information to government computer systems within the State of Israel.  In this context, they emphasize that the information is transferred to Israeli civilian authorities through computerized systems, and that the compliance decision explicitly refers to the automatic processing of data in databases.  The respondents further claim that the requested processing complies with the GDPR, and that in any case Israel is not subject to European regulation.  Moreover, they refer to the constitutional status of the right to privacy and privacy protection laws in Israeli law, arguing that these provide a balanced arrangement that ensures the processing of data in a limited, secure, and supervised manner - including the registration of the database and the licensing required by the Privacy Protection Authority.
13. Finally, the Respondents reject the Petitioners' arguments in the realm of international law. It was claimed that in the Judea and Samaria area, the State of Israel operates in accordance with the laws of belligerent occupation.  It is also argued that the provisions of the Geneva Convention, which govern the obligation to provide for the basic essential needs of the population, make it clear that the military commander has the authority to supervise aid organizations and ensure that they are indeed operating for humanitarian purposes.  Therefore, it was argued that the Convention does not bind the Respondents' hands and oblige them to work with any organization that wishes to do so, without ensuring that it does not endanger security and public order in the area.  With regard to the Gaza Strip, it was emphasized that Israel's obligations with respect to the Gaza Strip derive from the laws of armed conflict, which recognize Israel's right to supervise humanitarian aid and the organizations working to deliver it in order to ensure that this does not impair the combat effort.

The Procedure

14. To complete the picture, it should be noted that on February 27, 2026, a temporary order was issued (Justice Barak-Erez) according to which the conditions that apply to the petitioners at the time of filing the petitions will remain in effect until another decision is made, without this changing the existing situation or granting additional rights.  I will add that on March 23, 2026, a hearing was held before us, in which the parties laid out their arguments.  At the end of the hearing, we suggested to the petitioners that the petitions be rejected, while they would be given time to comply with the information requirement in accordance with the procedure.  The petitioners informed us that they stand by their petitions, hence the need for our decision.

Discussion and Decision

15. At the outset, I will note that it is impossible not to address the heavy delay that adhered to the filing of the petitions and the procedural conduct of the petitioners. Although the procedure at the center of the discussion was published in March 2025, with nine months to prepare for its implementation, the petitioners chose to wait until the very 90th minute, a few days before the deadline set for the cessation of their activities, in order to appeal; And they forced this court to decide in circumstances of urgency that they created with their own hands.  This conduct, which seeks to force the court to decide, including the issuance of temporary orders, in a pressing time frame, is inappropriate, and the petitioners were treated with kindness when the temporary order was granted to them despite their procedural failure.
16. We must also address another procedural failure on the part of the petitioners. While the (amended) petition included claims of secondary authority, it was precisely the argument of principle and central authority, according to which the respondents lack the authority to infringe on the right to privacy of the employees of the organizations without explicit authorization in primary legislation, that was born for the first time in response to the preliminary response submitted by the petitioners.  This is a statement of claims on the subject with its appendices of about 130 pages, which was submitted without permission on March 22, 2026, on the eve of the hearing of the petition, in a manner that did not leave the respondents with an opportunity to respond to it.  It should be noted that the procedures in this court are not purely technical rules; They are intended to ensure the proper conduct of the proceeding, the preservation of the principles of procedural justice, and the right of a litigant to respond to the arguments raised against him.  Deviation from them, by way of raising new legal arguments at advanced stages, impairs the respondent's ability to defend himself properly (see: Appeal Petition/Administrative Claim 9317/05 Peace Pumps in Tax Appeal v.  Yizreelim Local Planning and Building Committee, para.  21 [Nevo] (October 26, 2010)).  It is therefore a change of unacceptable façade that justifies the rejection of the claims in limine; And rightly so, the respondents' counsel revolted against this during the hearing before us.  Despite this, and for the sake of the completeness of the legal picture, I found it necessary to address the main arguments that arose in the framework of this statement of claims.  Let us therefore proceed to examine the arguments on their merits.
17. Before we dive into the depths of the arguments, we must demarcate the boundaries of the dispute before us. The petitions before us are not directed against the registration procedure as a whole, but rather focus their arrows on one provision of the procedure - the information requirement set forth in section 5.1(8) of the procedure, and the consequences arising from non-compliance with it.  This directive instructs an organization wishing to register in Israel as an international humanitarian aid organization‑to provide a list of its employees involved in the management and actual implementation of the work plan, while defining the details of the information required for each worker: "full names, passport numbers (for foreigners), ID number (for Palestinian workers), and contact information." The petitioners note in their petition that they acted in accordance with the new procedure and submitted requests to be registered as an aid organization in which they provided all the required details and documents, except for the information requirement.  Therefore, the discussion below, on the level of the respondents' authority to demand the information, on the level of the alleged violation of the right to privacy, and on the level of international law, will be held in its entirety only in the light of the validity of this provision.
18. The aid organizations, whose activities are indisputably important, plant their claims in terms of authority, in aspects related to the PA's authority and status in the region. However, it seems that the legal core at the center of the dispute relates in practice to the sovereign authority of the Government of Israel in general, and of the Minister of the Interior in particular (hereinafter: the Minister), to regulate the gates of entry into the State of Israel, inter alia, on the basis of the security and political considerations of the State.
19. In order to understand the exact mechanism of operation of the procedure, we will reiterate that it anchors a two-stage administrative procedure. In the first stage, the application for registration of the organization itself is being examined, with the aim of verifying that it is "an international humanitarian NGO whose main activity is vis-à-vis Palestinian residents with the aim of assisting their welfare" (section 3.1 of the procedure), and that there are no security or other considerations that prevent its registration.  The second stage relates individually to the granting of visas to the organization's foreign employees, and in accordance with the provisions of Section 5.2 of the Procedure, a request to provide a positive recommendation to a foreign worker will be submitted "after the organization in which he works is approved." This means that the approval and registration of an aid organization are a necessary prerequisite for examining visa applications for its employees, and individual applications can be submitted on this platform.  At the end of completing these two stages and receiving a positive recommendation from the inter-ministerial team, the organization can apply to the Population and Immigration Authority for residency and work visas for its employees, which are anchored in their status as employees of an international aid organization.
20. The request for information is therefore part of the first stage of this process, in which the inter-ministerial team seeks to make a basic acquaintance with the employees of the requesting organization, in order to enable "due diligence" and to formulate a professional and security position regarding the organization as a whole. However, the receipt of the information in the first stage assumes the factual basis on which the Minister's authority is exercised in the second stage - when the individual requests of the foreign employees of the organizations for granting visas are examined.  The registration process is not an end in itself that is detached from the context, but rather constitutes the administrative gateway through which the organization steps towards examining its individual requests.  Therefore, the authority of the inter-ministerial team to demand the information derives from the authority of the Minister of the Interior to determine who can enter the country's gates, since the authority cannot be expected to exercise informed judgment regarding the granting of visas to the employees of a humanitarian aid organization, without first discussing the nature and identity of the organization as a humanitarian organization that does not endanger the security of the State of Israel and the region (and on the state's powers involved in collecting information in various ways in connection with the entry of foreigners into the country, see: Michael Birnhack and Omri Rahum-Twig Information Privacy 159 (2026) (hereinafter: Birnhack and Rahum-Twig)).
21. This authority is enshrined in the Entry into Israel Law, 5712-1952 (hereinafter: the Law or the Entry into Israel Law), and it derives from the sovereign nature of the state. At its core are the basic concepts according to which a foreigner has no vested right to enter Israel.  As held in the case law of this Court, "the discretion given to the Minister of the Interior in all matters relating to the granting of entry permits and residence permits in Israel is very broad, and it expresses the sovereign character of the state, in determining who will enter its gates, and who will not be allowed to enter and sit in it" (High Court of Justice 11437/05 Kav LaOved v.  Ministry of the Interior, IsrSC 66(3) 122, 152 (2011)).  This sovereignty means effective supervision and control over those who enter the gates of the state.  A demand for basic details of the organization's activists, which is in fact the identity of the organization, is therefore not a bureaucratic whim, but rather a threshold demand intended to negate the risk posed by the organization.  Thus, for example, the organization's employment of a terrorist operative or someone who maintains ties with terrorist operatives may indicate the risk posed by the organization.  The same is true of the involvement of the organization or its operatives in criminal activity.  The minister's authority therefore enables the state to fulfill its duty to protect the security of the state and the public.  For this purpose, the provision of section 6 of the law authorizes the Minister of the Interior to "determine conditions for granting a visa or a residence permit" (see also section 14(a)(1) of the Entry into Israel Law; Appeal Petition/Administrative Claim 4760/20 Ali Adam v.  Ministry of Interior - Population and Immigration Authority, para.  18 [Nevo] (March 4, 2021); Yigal Marzel, "On the (Broad) Discretion of the Minister of the Interior under the Entry into Israel Law, 5712-1952" 249 Edmond Levy Book (Ohad Gordon ed., 2017)).  This is a broad authority subject to the discretion of the Minister, whose exercise by way of setting a precondition concerning the collection of data and the formulation of recommendations by the team that will assist it in its decision, does not constitute a deviation from the principles of this authority; Rather, it is a direct expression of it.

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22. This conclusion, according to which the authority of the inter-ministerial team derives from the law and is subordinate to it, finds explicit expression in the basic documents regulating its activities. Thus, section 2(c) of the government decision states that "the staff will forward the information regarding the registration of organizations and recommendations for foreign workers to the Population and Immigration Authority [...] for the purpose of making a decision by the Authority regarding the granting of a work permit to a foreign worker of an organization", and section 2(i) of the Government Decision clarifies that: "Nothing in this decision detracts from the authority and discretion of the Population and Immigration Authority under the Entry into Israel Law, 5712-1952 for the purpose of making a decision regarding the granting of a work permit to a foreign worker of an organization, including in accordance with the Population and Immigration Authority's procedure regarding "Handling the Entry of International Workers of Humanitarian NGOs into the Territory of the State of Israel" of September 1, 2013 [...] The Population Authority's Decision and immigration as detailed above will be granted in accordance with the Entry into Israel Law, 5712-1952 and the procedures of the Population and Immigration Authority after receiving the team's recommendations." Similarly, Section 3.4 of the updated procedure defines a "work permit" as "a residence and work permit of type B/1 of the rules of an international organization, including its extension, granted by the Population and Immigration Authority," and section 10.2 explicitly states that the validity of a positive recommendation for a foreign worker will be "subject to the Entry into Israel Law."

It follows from the aforesaid that the inter-ministerial team operates within the boundaries of the existing law, as a professional body that formulates an administrative infrastructure and recommends its recommendations to the body authorized by law.  If this is the case, the claim that the demand for information constitutes an infringement of basic rights without explicit authorization in primary legislation should be rejected.

23. Finally, the long-standing practice that preceded the government's decision and the new procedure cannot be ignored. The petitioners operated for a long period of time under the registration regime in the old procedure, in which they were required to provide personal information about foreign workers who wished to enter Israel, without questioning the very authority of the state to condition the granting of visas on the provision of the information (see, for example, section E.1 of the old procedure).  The new procedure was not born out of thin air, and is based on the same normative infrastructure of state supervision over the entry and activity of aid organizations and their employees.  Its purpose is to ensure that the foreign worker's residence and work visa, which is granted to him by virtue of his membership in an international humanitarian aid organization, will be granted after knowing the identity of the organization and the manner in which it operates.  Given that the petitioners themselves have operated for years within the framework of such a registration mechanism, it is difficult to accept the argument today that the mere demand for information under the new procedure has no normative basis (and see further: Yitzhak Zamir, Administrative Authority, Vol.  2, 1084 (2011).
24. In this context, I will note that the changes made in the procedure and in the entity responsible for implementing it stemmed from the lessons of the October shiva and the exposure of the infiltration of terrorist organizations into the aid systems. The Ministry of Social Affairs recognized its professional limitations in the face of the intensifying security challenges, which led to the work of the National Security Council headquarters and the establishment of the current mechanism, which entrusts the task of inspection and supervision to the bodies in charge of security and those who possess the appropriate tools.  The transfer of the authority to examine the matter from the Ministry of Welfare to the inter-ministerial team is nothing more than an adaptation of the registration process to a changing security reality (compare, for example: High Court of Justice 11087/05 The General Cooperative Workers' Company in Eretz Yisrael in Tax Appeal v.  State of Israel, para.  12 [Nevo] (August 21, 2012)).
25. The determination that we are in fact dealing with the authority concerned with regulating the gates of entry into Israel undermines the claim of infringement of the autonomy of the Palestinian Authority. It is obvious that registering an organization with the Authority, even if it does exist, does not grant an automatic key to Israel's border crossings or a right granted to stay and work visas.  The Israeli procedure is a preliminary and intra-state stage, designed to ensure that an entity seeking to use the state's infrastructure does not endanger its security.  This does not constitute interference with the civilian administration handed over to the PA, but rather a legitimate exercise of Israel's sovereign authority.
26. This also requires the rejection of the claim that the team purported to issue a "closure order" to the aid organizations. An examination of the government's decision and the language of the procedure shows that we are not dealing with an administrative act that expropriates the organization's legal personality or erases its civil registration with the Palestinian Authority.  Non-registration does not and cannot cancel the organization's existence in the corporate sense, but rather prevents the provision of sovereign aid tools, such as visas to enter Israel and the possibility of transferring aid at border crossings, to those who refuse to meet basic security requirements.  The provisions of the procedure therefore focus on the consequence of the non-renewal of the Israeli permit: the removal of the organizations' foreign employees from its territory and from the territories of the region and the Gaza Strip.

IIThis point requires clarification: the petitioners are right in arguing that the state lacks the legal basis to prohibit the organizations from employing local Palestinian workers in PA territory, or to restrict their movement.  It seems that even the respondents do not disagree with this and note, in Rachel, your little daughter, that "Residents of the area are not required to hold any permit or permit to enter the area" (Paragraph 69 of their preliminary response).  Therefore, the letter sent to the organizations, according to which they must remove their employees and cease their activities, does not extend the authority granted to the staff in accordance with the government decision and the procedure, to the Palestinian employees of the organizations.