• Israel’s Supreme Court freezes ban on foreign aid organisations in enclave
• US public sympathy shifts to Palestinians over Israel, new Gallup poll reveals

CAIRO: Relentless Israeli attacks killed at least seven Palestinians in Gaza on Friday, medics said, adding to a death toll of at least 600 people killed by Israeli fire since a US-brokered ceasefire agreement came into effect last October.

Gaza’s health officials reported that in southern Gaza, five people were killed and several others were injured, some critically, in Israeli drone strikes. The strikes targeted two police checkpoints in Khan Yunis and in the Abu Hujair area northwest of the Bureij refugee camp later in the day, medics said.

Separately, an Israeli airstrike against a group of Palestinians in Gaza City’s Tuffah neighbourhood in northern Gaza killed two people and wounded several others.

Ban on NGOs frozen

Meanwhile, Israel’s Supreme Court decided in a ruling published on Friday to freeze a government ban on 37 foreign NGOs working in Gaza and the occupied West Bank pending a final decision.

“Without taking any position, a temporary interim order is hereby issued,” the court said in a ruling responding to a petition from more than a dozen NGOs, seeking to reverse the ban after Israel’s government revoked their status in Israel.

The decision theoretically allows the NGOs to work in Gaza and the West Bank until a final ruling, but aid groups are unsure about the freeze’s implementation.

Organisations like MSF, Oxfam, the Norwegian Refugee Council, and CARE were informed on Dec 30, 2025, that their Israeli registrations expired and they had 60 days to renew them by providing Palestinian staff lists.

If they failed to do so, they would have to cease operations in Gaza and the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, from March 1.

The NGOs, through AIDA, petitioned the Supreme Court after losing their charity registration in Israel, following a year-long refusal to disclose their Palestinian employees to Israeli authorities.

The court said in its ruling that there existed a “genuine legal dispute” due to the foreign NGOs’ responsibilities to their employees’ privacy under European law.

“We are still waiting to see how the injunction will be interpreted by the state and whether or not this will mean an increase in our ability to operate”, Athena Rayburn, AIDA director, told AFP, calling it “a step in the right direction”.

Sympathy shifts to Palestinians

Separately, a fresh Gallup poll shows that for the first time, Americans sympathise more with Palestinians than with Israelis in their decades-long conflict.

The poll, released on Friday, found that 41 per cent of Americans sympathise more with the Palestinians and 36pc sided with Israel, a sharp reversal from just a year ago when Israel led in sympathies 46 to 33pc.

For the first time in over two decades, Israel is not leading in Gallup’s poll, though the gap is not significant.

Partisan views on the Middle East show more independents shifting towards Palestinians, with an 11-point preference over Israel in the past year.

Democrats overwhelmingly support Palestinians, with 65pc sympathising with them versus 17pc for Israel.

Democrats blame ex-president Joe Biden for insufficient action to curb Israel’s offensive in Gaza after October 7,2023, escalation.

Gallup surveyed 1,001 US adults by telephone from February 2 to 16.

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2026