Aid workers across multiple international organizations encountered pressure to dilute public statements about Gaza, avoiding terms such as 'occupation', 'blockade' and 'accountability'. Leadership repeatedly required extensive revisions and delayed approvals, sometimes taking weeks to publish a single statement. Several organizations restricted language in public communications, withheld forceful descriptions, and minimized Israel's role. Many staff experienced anger, despair and guilt and requested anonymity because of job fears. Internal emails, messages and guidelines and analysis of organizational websites and over 100 public statements reveal coordinated efforts to soften messaging, coinciding with a new process for registering NGOs implemented by Israel in March.
Until the first half of 2025, she had worked in Jerusalem doing advocacy on the occupied Palestinian territories for a large aid organization with its headquarters in the United States. During that time, she would routinely have to fight for weeks on end to get a single statement published. Leadership, she told DW, would insist on watering down the language, deeming words such as "occupation," "blockade" and "accountability" too problematic.
Over the course of several months, DW's investigative unit spoke with 19 sources from a dozen international organizations that provide humanitarian assistance to Palestinians. Oscillating between anger and despair, all but one of the aid workers DW interviewed asked to remain anonymous, fearing for their jobs. DW reviewed internal emails, messages and guidelines, and corroborated the workers' accounts by analyzing the organizations' websites, explainer pages and more than 100 public statements published before and after Israel implemented a new process for registering NGOs in March.
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