NEW YORK, February 25. /TASS/. Israel has suspended visa and work permit extension to employees of humanitarian organizations operating in the Gaza Strip, Bloomberg reported.

According to the news agency, Israel in not extending visas and work permits in West Bank either. The measure applied to employees of such organizations as Amnesty International, Oxfam, Care International, and others. Thus, some 60% of humanitarian employees have reportedly faced visa extension problems in recent weeks.

In late January, a number of countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, and Germany, announced their decision to suspend financing for the UNRWA following reports about some of the agency’s employees possibly being linked with Hamas. UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini ordered the dismissal of several agency employees due to their alleged connection to the Hamas attack on Israel last year.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7 after militants from the Gaza Strip-based radical Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise incursion on Israeli territory, killing many Israeli kibbutz residents living near the Gaza border and abducting more than 240 Israelis, including women, children and the elderly. Hamas described its attack as a response to Israeli authorities’ aggressive actions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. Israel declared a total blockade of the Gaza Strip and launched bombardments of the enclave and some areas in Lebanon and Syria, as well as a ground operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Clashes are also reported in the West Bank.