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Israel’s ban on Doctors Without Borders’ humanitarian operation in Gaza spells deeper catastrophe for Gazans, the head of the medical charity told AFP on Monday.
Israel announced on Sunday that it was terminating all the activities in Gaza and the West Bank of the organization, known by its French acronym MSF, after it failed to provide a list of its Palestinian staff.
MSF slammed the move, which takes effect on March 1, as a “pretext” to obstruct aid.
“This is a decision that was made by the Israeli government to restrict humanitarian assistance into Gaza and the West Bank at the most critical time for Palestinians,” MSF secretary-general Christopher Lockyear warned in an interview with AFP at the charity’s Geneva headquarters.
“We are at a moment where Palestinian people need more humanitarian assistance, not less,” he said. “Ceasing MSF activities is going to be catastrophic for the people of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.”
MSF has been a key provider of medical and humanitarian aid in Gaza, particularly since the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led invasion and massacre in southern Israel triggered a two-year war in the enclave.
The charity says it currently provides at least 20 percent of hospital beds in the territory and operates around 20 health centers.
In 2025 alone, it carried out more than 800,000 medical consultations, treated more than 100,000 trauma cases, and assisted more than 10,000 infant deliveries.
It also provided more than 700 million liters (almost 185 million gallons) of water, Lockyear pointed out.
‘Impossible choice’
Israel announced on January 1 that it would enforce a ban on the activities of 37 international NGOs operating in Gaza, including MSF, over their failure to comply with stringent new “security and transparency” requirements concerning their employees.
The standards were put in place under a government resolution from March 1, requiring NGOs to submit a raft of documentation about their organization and identify all foreign and Palestinian employees, including their passports and personal identification numbers.
Some of the NGOs targeted have said the requirements flout, or at least erode, international humanitarian law, and Israel has faced widespread condemnation from NGOs and the United Nations.
Israel has accused MSF of having two employees who held membership in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas terror groups.
The medical charity has denied the allegations, saying it would “never knowingly employ anyone involved in military activities.”
“If Israel has any evidence of such things, then they should share that evidence,” Lockyear said, insisting that “there’s been no proof given to us.”
He decried “an orchestrated campaign to delegitimize us,” calling on other countries to defend efforts to bring desperately needed humanitarian aid into Gaza.
“They should be speaking to Israel, pressuring Israel to ensure that there is a reverse of any banning of humanitarian organizations.”
Lockyear said MSF, which counts around 1,100 staff inside Gaza, had been trying to engage with Israeli authorities for nearly a year over the requested lists.
But it was left with “an impossible choice,” he said.
“We’ve been forced to choose between the safety and security of our staff and being able to reach patients.”
Contrary to Lockyear’s insistence that Israel had not provided evidence, the IDF published a photograph last year of MSF staffer Fadi al-Wadiya wearing a Palestinian Islamic Jihad uniform and identified him as a rocket expert after he was killed in an Israeli drone strike.
Al-Wadiya was involved in “the development and advancement of the organization’s missile array,” the military said at the time.
It released the images of him wearing a PIJ uniform after MFS denied he was linked to the terror group.
‘Can only get worse’
MSF said it decided not to hand over staff names “because Israeli authorities failed to provide the concrete assurances required to guarantee our staff’s safety, protect their personal data, and uphold the independence of our medical operation.”
Lockyear insisted that was a “very rational” decision, pointing out that 15 MSF staff had been killed in Gaza during the war, out of more than 500 humanitarian workers and more than 1,700 medical workers killed in the Strip.
Lockyear highlighted that without independent humanitarian organizations in Gaza, an already “catastrophic” situation “can only get worse.”
“We need to increase massively the humanitarian assistance that’s going into Gaza,” he said. “Not restrict it, not block it.”
‘Publicity games’
Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) has said that “MSF continues to play publicity games instead of complying with the registration process.”
“The continued withholding of basic staff information raises serious questions on the involvement of MSF staff with Hamas,” COGAT charged.
In a separate statement, COGAT said that “many other medical organizations, without terror links, have been approved and are stepping up. MSF’s role is neither unique nor as essential as it claims.”
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