• Israel’s Supreme Court docket freezes ban on international support organizations in enclave
• US public sympathy shifts to Palestinians over Israel, new Gallup ballot reveals
CAIRO: Relentless Israeli assaults killed at the very least seven Palestinians in Gaza on Friday, medics stated, including to a demise toll of at the very least 600 individuals killed by Israeli hearth since a US-brokered ceasefire settlement got here into impact final October.
Gaza’s well being officers reported that in southern Gaza, 5 individuals had been killed and several other others had been injured, some critically, in Israeli drone strikes. The strikes focused two police checkpoints in Khan Yunis and within the Abu Hujair space northwest of the Bureij refugee camp later within the day, medics stated.
Individually, an Israeli airstrike towards a gaggle of Palestinians in Gaza Metropolis’s Tuffah neighborhood in northern Gaza killed two individuals and wounded a number of others.
Ban on NGOs frozen
In the meantime, Israel’s Supreme Court docket determined in a ruling printed on Friday to freeze a authorities ban on 37 international NGOs working in Gaza and the occupied West Financial institution pending a remaining determination.
“With out taking any place, a brief interim order is hereby issued,” the courtroom stated in a ruling responding to a petition from greater than a dozen NGOs, in search of to reverse the ban after Israel’s authorities revoked their standing in Israel.
The choice theoretically permits the NGOs to work in Gaza and the West Financial institution till a remaining ruling, however support teams are not sure in regards to the freeze’s implementation.
Organizations like MSF, Oxfam, the Norwegian Refugee Council, and CARE had been knowledgeable on Dec 30, 2025, that their Israeli registrations expired they usually had 60 days to resume them by offering Palestinian employees lists.
In the event that they failed to take action, they must stop operations in Gaza and the West Financial institution, together with east Jerusalem, from March 1.
The NGOs, via AIDA, petitioned the Supreme Court docket after dropping their charity registration in Israel, following a year-long refusal to reveal their Palestinian workers to Israeli authorities.
The courtroom stated in its ruling that there existed a “real authorized dispute” as a result of international NGOs’ duties to their workers’ privateness underneath European regulation.
“We’re nonetheless ready to see how the injunction might be interpreted by the state and whether or not or not it will imply a rise in our skill to function”, Athena Rayburn, AIDA director, informed AFP, calling it “a step in the fitting course”.
Sympathy shifts to Palestinians
Individually, a latest Gallup ballot exhibits that for the primary time, Individuals sympathize extra with Palestinians than with Israelis of their decades-long battle.
The ballot, launched on Friday, discovered that 41 % of Individuals sympathize extra with the Palestinians and 36 % sided with Israel, a pointy reversal from only a 12 months in the past when Israel led in sympathies 46 to 33 %.
For the primary time in over twenty years, Israel isn’t main in Gallup’s ballot, though the hole isn’t vital.
Partisan views on the Center East present extra independents shifting in the direction of Palestinians, with an 11-point choice over Israel prior to now 12 months.
Democrats overwhelmingly assist Palestinians, with 65pc sympathizing with them versus 17pc for Israel.
Democrats blame ex-president Joe Biden for inadequate motion to curb Israel’s offensive in Gaza after October 7, 2023, escalation.
Gallup surveyed 1,001 US adults by phone from February 2 to 16.
Printed in Daybreak, February twenty eighth, 2026
