Swiss NGOs call for resumption of aid payments in the Middle East
In an open letter, 15 Swiss aid organisations and associations active in the Middle East have called on the Swiss government to resume aid payments to NGOs in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
The payments were suspended by the government at the end of October due to the massacres carried out by militant Islamist group Hamas in Israel.
+ Switzerland suspends funding of 11 Palestinian and Israeli NGOs
According to the letter, which has been seen by the Swiss News Agency Keystone-SDA, the government has not provided a factual and comprehensible explanation for the suspension of payments.
In the letter, the aid organisations also call on the government to create complete transparency about the basis on which the decision to “suspend” the funding of 11 long-standing and audited partner organisations of the Swiss foreign ministry in Israel and the Palestinian territories was made.
+ Why Switzerland has frozen funding to 11 Middle East NGOs
The suspension would not only damage the reputation of the organisations concerned but would also send a negative signal to other donors, the statement continued. Furthermore, Switzerland would lose credit as a reliable partner in international cooperation.
The 15 signatories included AllianceSud, the Swiss-Palestinian Association, the Swiss Protestant Reformed Church Aid Organisation (HEKS) and the Swiss Platform for Peacebuilding (KOFF).
In addition, a petition with over 14,000 signatures was submitted on Wednesday, which also calls on the foreign ministry to resume financial support for long-standing partner organisations in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. You can find them here.
If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.
External Content
Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.
Almost finished… We need to confirm your email address. To complete the subscription process, please click the link in the email we just sent you.
More
Roger Federer is not eternal, but he changed tennis forever
More
Hacked chats expose questionable methods used by Swiss and Brazilian prosecutors
More
Swiss bank fined for helping French ex-minister evade taxes
More
Progress towards gender equality in Swiss academia remains slow
More
How do you get Swiss youngsters to vote?
In compliance with the JTI standards
More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.