Médecins Sans Frontières (also known as Doctors Without Borders, herein referred to as MSF) have released a new report which outlines exactly how Israel have been carrying out ethnic cleansing in Palestine. Yet nearly all Western media has ignored it.
MSF are a humanitarian organisation, and one of the few still allowed to operate in Gaza. Their latest report is yet another damning indictment of the depravity of Israel’s terrorism in Palestine. Just in the past couple of months, Amnesty International have declared Israel to be carrying out a genocide; Oxfam have said that Israel is carrying out ethnic cleansing and stopping their staff from delivery life-saving aid to Palestinians; the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification collective have issued a famine alert in the Gaza strip; a report from Human Rights Watch found Israel has committed “acts of genocide” in Palestine.
Organisation after organisation have rigorously and meticulously gathered evidence, testimony, and expert research to reach their findings. Now, the pressure on Israel – however much Western powers may wish to ignore it – is further mounting as MSF’s report puts forward a harrowing reality of Israel destroying healthcare systems in Palestine.
Médecins Sans Frontières: Israel’s blockade to siege
The report lays out how the blockade of the last 17 years has now become a siege, exacerbating already dire conditions for food, water, healthcare, and other basics for survival. MSF’s secretary general, Christopher Lockyear, said:
People in Gaza are struggling to survive apocalyptic conditions, but nowhere is safe, no one is spared, and there is no exit from this shattered enclave.
Lockyear also referred to the numerous reports from other organisations, saying:
What our medical teams have witnessed on the ground throughout this conflict is consistent with the descriptions provided by an increasing number of legal experts and organisations concluding that genocide is taking place in Gaza.
While we don’t have legal authority to establish intentionality, the signs of ethnic cleansing and the ongoing devastation – including mass killings, severe physical and mental health injuries, forced displacement, and impossible conditions of life for Palestinians under siege and bombardment – are undeniable.
The MSF report states:
Throughout the offensive, Israeli forces have blocked essential items such as food, water and
medical supplies from entering the Strip. They have either denied, delayed or instrumentalised
humanitarian assistance, allowing insignificant quantities of aid into Gaza with a complete
disregard for the actual needs and the level of suffering of the population.
Harrowingly, the report discusses how, even if the offensive were to end today, its impact would be “unprecedented.” MSF make an important distinction between a blockade and a siege, explaining:
Major restrictions on the aid that Gaza is allowed to receive are not new: this small piece of land had been under an Israeli blockade for over 16 years when the war began. The UN estimated that the population already relied on external supply and aid at 80 percent before the war.
However, since 7 October 2023 the blockade has turned into a siege.
Israel is demonstrably holding the Palestinian population hostage. And, as MSF note, any sanctions or orders from the international community have been ignored:
In January 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to implement provisional measures to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza. Despite this, no action has been
taken to address these measures.
Israel has done nothing to scale back its actions; if anything they have escalated already horrific actions to further destroy basic infrastructure that allows residents to survive.
Humanitarian workers targeted and killed
The report explains that 8 MSF workers have been killed, with many family members of MSF workers also having been killed. Many more MSF workers have been injured. This is in line with how Israel has targeted journalists and their families over the past year.
MSF medical coordinator for Palestine, Guillemette Thomas, said:
Hospital staff are no longer able to treat the injured properly, or even admit new patients, and everything is being done in extremely poor conditions, with too few staff and without the necessary medical equipment.
Javid Abdelmoneim, head of the MSF medical team in Gaza, said:
In the emergency room blood was all over the floor and I had to kneel down to see the patients on the floor. They were spread out all over the place, there were no beds left. I could feel my knees getting wet with blood. At the same time, more and more patients were arriving.
I’ve worked in similar situations with mass influxes of injured people all over the world and the smell of blood is the same wherever you are. But here, in Gaza, the horror really hit home.
Each piece of evidence for Israel’s ethnic cleansing and genocide is invaluable. Whatever may come, we are able to collect in real time piece after piece of documentary evidence of the impact of Israel’s bloody campaign. It is striking to see the number of organisations producing reports, just like this one from MSF, that systematically outline the quantitative data behind Israel’s genocide, testimony from professionals and civilians in Palestine, and expert reflection.
Destruction
Médecins Sans Frontières have had to open two field hospitals to “address the skyrocketing medical needs.” However, these field hospitals “cannot replace a functioning health system.” The report meticulously details the timeline of destruction at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis and at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah. There are descriptions of Israel targeting hospitals purposefully, snipers shooting at those trying to leave, and arresting MSF workers. One witness to the attacks at a hospital said:
The attacks on Nasser hospital by Israeli forces were deliberate, methodical and extremely violent.
Basic medical items cannot get past Israel, with MSF describing the “painstaking formalities” that mean the likes of generators, scalpels, scissors, desalination units, and oxygen concentrators cannot make their way to the Palestinians that desperately need them. MSF explain:
For every order, they must request specific authorisation from Israeli authorities, providing a photo, technical sheet, intended use, and the GPS location where the item will be used. Even with authorisation, items can still be blocked.
One such cargo from MSF was rejected eight times, with many deliveries arriving in terrible condition, if they arrive at all. Naturally, this extreme difficulty has meant that medical protocols have had to be scaled back, with people having recently had surgery left with inadequate dressings that leave them vulnerable to infection. Here, the term ‘excess deaths’ is used by MSF to describe:
deaths that occur above what would normally be expected in a population under stable conditions, encompassing both direct deaths from violence and indirect deaths resulting from the collapse of healthcare services, malnutrition, and disease outbreaks.
As a vital part of their ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, Israel have destroyed the healthcare infrastructure of the region. All this comes while they bomb, burn, and maim Palestinians.
The lie of ‘safe zones’
Importantly, MSF’s report makes the connection between this evidence and how to characterise Israel’s ethnic cleansing. For example, they call out Israel’s repeated lies about safe zones for exactly what they are:
Civilians are ordered to go to areas designated as “safe zones” by Israeli forces, only to be hit by deadly airstrikes once they are sheltering there: many have died simply for seeking shelter exactly where they were told to.
The report describes in excruciating detail the consequences of people being hunted down in a grotesque game from Israel, as they rush from so-called safe zone to so-called safe zone. MSF describe, from the experiences of their own workers and the testimony of civilians in Palestine, how:
People live in a constant state of nerve-wracking hyper-vigilance, always ready to flee to yet another unknown location.
MSF explain the mental toll of living in such constant anguish and show the scale of the issue:
By early October 2024, more than 86 per cent of the Gaza Strip’s space was affected by over 40 unreversed evacuation orders issued in 2024 alone.
Many people have been displaced several times over, including MSF workers:
To date, 1.9 million people, representing 90 per cent of the population of Gaza, have been displaced since the start of hostilities.
MSF also outline the mental toll of Israel’s genocide:
The psychological and psychiatric impact of Israel’s campaign of death and destruction cannot be overstated. Since we are still in the most acute phase of the offensive, the impact is unquantifiable, but it is quite certain that entire generations will be affected by it, including those who are too young to realise what is happening.
Mental health is an important healthcare concern. Destruction of hospitals and the targeting of aid workers are a pressing and immediate concern, but it is vital that MSF dedicates space in their report to mental health concerns. Their analysis makes clear that Israel is waging a war of terror. This is not in the sense of the US military industrial complex, but in the original sense of the word. Palestinians are living in absolute terror caused by Israel’s relentless assaults. The lie of safe zones, the continual displacement, the deliberate starvation, the destruction of hospitals and schools: these are all done by Israel to spread fear and terror into a besieged population.
Médecins Sans Frontières: no future
An MSF psychologist in Gaza, Davide Musardo, poignantly describes the hopeless reality for Palestinians:
I have seen people break down when receiving news of another evacuation order. Some people have changed places as many as 12 times in eight months. ‘I won’t move my tent anymore, I might as well die,’ I have heard people say.
Musardo continues:
In Gaza, one survives but the exposure to trauma is constant. Everything is missing, even the idea of a future.
This is the impact of Israel’s actions – a destruction of a future for people beset by the terror of ethnic cleansing. The work of organisations like MSF and their communication of what their staff see are incalculably precious. This is what Israel cannot stamp out no matter what it does – the history of Palestine, the present of solidarity with Palestine, and the future of a free Palestine.
Featured image via Doctors Without Borders
