MSF teams are bearing witness to the unfolding genocide in Gaza committed by Israeli authorities. 

Through deliberate actions of Israeli forces, it is very clear that the intention is the destruction of all Palestinian life. Through mass killings and displacements, the destruction of vital civilian infrastructure, and blockades choking off access to food, water, medicines, and other essential humanitarian supplies, the Israeli authorities are purposefully and systematically destroying the conditions necessary for Palestinian life. No one is spared. 

Between 2 March - 18 May, the Israeli authorities completely blocked all humanitarian aid like food, fuel and medical supplies from entering the Strip, trapping people in Gaza under a full siege and leading to a severe scarcity of essential items. 

Despite the supposed lifting of the siege on 18 May, only tiny amounts of humanitarian aid have been allowed in. MSF has had nine trucks of medical supplies, under heavy restrictions, into Gaza. No fuel has entered and food distribution, either through the US-Israeli scheme or people waiting for the tiny number of humanitarian trucks allowed in are leading to deadly massacres. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation launched its activities on 27 May, as part of the US-Israeli plan to instrumentalise aid. Since then, more than 600 people have been killed and nearly 4,000 wounded at these food distribution sites while trying to receive food.

Humanitarian aid, especially food, is being weaponised. It is being used as bait to forcibly displace people, to meet military objectives, or blocked entirely. Aid is not a bargaining chip. It is a lifeline. Denying it is collective punishment – a war crime.

The hypocrisy and inaction of the international community has allowed Israel to freely continue its massacre of Palestinians in Gaza with total impunity. Every delay is an act of complicity. Governments’ hypocrisy is stark, they voice their concern for Palestinians while they continue to supply the weapons that kill, maim, and burn people who end up in our hospitals.

The Israeli authorities have been tightening their grip on the West Bank by imposing tighter movement restrictions and increasing military operations. MSF calls for an immediate end to forced displacement and military aggression against Palestinians in the West Bank. 

This includes prolonged military operations, movement restrictions, demolitions, disproportionate use of force, and denial of essential services. Between October 2023 and June 2025, at least 947 Palestinians have been killed and over 8,800 injured due to conflict in the West Bank.

Palestinians in the West Bank have been facing a significant escalation of violence both by Israeli forces and settlers since October 2023. This has escalated further in the past five months due to the ‘Iron Wall’ campaign which displaced more than 40,000 Palestinians in northern West Bank. Israeli Forces have emptied and destroyed, in part or in whole, the Jenin, Nur Shams and Tulkarem refugee camps, Israeli authorities continue to conduct mass home demolitions in the West Bank

During the military escalation between Israel and Iran in June 2025, there was increased military presence across the West Bank. Homes were raided and became military outposts. Checkpoint closures and increased security concerns kept people trapped for nearly four days and continues to limit movements. MSF’s ability to run services was severely hindered, mobile clinics were suspended for a week and staff struggled to get to work.

Thousands of displaced Palestinians are without proper shelter, essential services and access to healthcare in northern parts of the West Bank.  People lack basic commodities – such as diapers and other hygiene products – food and water, fuel and electricity.

This increased wave of violence takes place in a context of oppression Palestinians endure under Israeli occupation, which recently the International Court of Justice (ICJ), on 19 July 2024, deemed unlawful and in clear violation of international prohibitions against racial segregation and apartheid. Israeli forces continue to massively displace Palestinians in the West Bank.

An increased number of attacks on medical personnel and facilities has been reported to MSF teams, including attacks on hospitals, destruction of makeshift medical sites in refugee camps, as well as the harassment, detention, injury, and killing of first responders and medical workers by Israeli forces. In January 2025, MSF teams were forced to cancel mobile clinics in Hebron area due to Israeli forces closing checkpoints, and as a result of delays at checkpoints. MSF teams are seeing ambulances blocked by Israeli forces at checkpoints while carrying critical patients, medical facilities surrounded and raided during active operations, and healthcare workers subjected to physical violence while trying to save lives. 

In southern West Bank, patients also face increasing risks in attempting to reach medical facilities and MSF services, further compounding their access to healthcare. Back in July 2024, MSF conducted a patient satisfaction and experience survey among 110 randomly selected patients who had accessed our services in Hebron Governorate in the previous month. Over 43 percent of the responders reported being stopped at military checkpoints on their way to the MSF clinic, and 28 percent reported having experienced harassment or violence from military or settlers on their way to receive MSF services.

Since Israel’s resumption of attacks and its total blockade of aid on 2 March, Gaza has become a hell on earth for Palestinians. The survival of Palestinians lies at the mercy of Israeli authorities, who are denying the entire population access to food, water, medical care and shelter. There are shortages of everything except death and violence, with people regularly risking their lives to obtain insufficient rations given out by an Israeli-imposed pseudo-humanitarian organisation.

Since the start of the war, Palestinians have been forced to displace repeatedly, many fleeing for their lives multiple times, including many MSF staff. Over 714,000 people, or a third of Gaza’s population, have been displaced over the past three months (OCHA).

The numerous displacement orders and established no-go military zones now cover around 80 per cent of Gaza, pushing more than two million people into ever-shrinking space. Not a single area of Gaza has been spared from attacks. On 19 May, a single large-scale displacement order in Khan Younis covered 22 per cent of the Strip, affecting more than 70 MSF staff members, while another one on 26 May covered 40 per cent of central and south Gaza.

Medical supplies are running critically low and with the continuing blockade, not enough are getting into Gaza. With the blood banks almost empty, medical staff themselves have had to donate blood. Our staff are facing shortages of basic items such as sterile compresses, gloves, and anaesthetics. Dressings are changed once every two days, not every day. Some patients are treated without optimal pain relief and can only offer limited stocks of medication for those with chronic conditions, so they have to travel to clinics every month.

As well food, fuel is in short supply. The deliberate withholding of fuel, which affects the running of hospitals which rely on fuel powered generators and debilitates the water system is collective punishment which will leave the people of Gaza without clean drinking water.

Israeli authorities are using water as a weapon of war by destroying the water network, threatening those who fix it and essentially blocking electricity and fuel from entering Gaza. Along with injuries and killings from the fighting and bombings, lack of access to safe water is having consequences on people’s health and adding to the tension within communities. MSF provides over 1,400,000 litres of drinking water per day, enough for 230,000 people to have 6 litres per day. For so many people to be reliant on one organisation for something as essential as water demonstrates the terrible impact of Israel’s genocidal campaign.

Evacuation orders also make safe water harder to access for people, as people have to leave areas where water points may have been established, and organisations carrying out water trucking can no longer reach areas where people have gathered.

Medical evacuations out of Gaza should be facilitated without prejudice to Palestinian’s right to return - Israeli authorities must facilitate the medical evacuations for all those patients who need to receive treatment not available in Gaza. They must be able to travel with at least one caregiver and there must be no prejudice to their right to a safe, voluntary and dignified return to Gaza. According to WHO, about 11,000 to 13,000 people, including more than 4,500 children, remain in urgent need of medical evacuation. Our teams in Amman, Jordan, managed to successfully evacuate 13 child patients and 11 caretakers to our Reconstructive Surgery Hospital, where they receive comprehensive rehabilitative care for wounds they sustained after being injured in Israeli airstrikes.  On 2 July, MSF received nine more children and their caretakers from Gaza at the MSF reconstructive surgery hospital in Jordan. In collaboration with the Jordanian Ministry of Health, these children were evacuated from Gaza after suffering severe injuries caused by relentless Israeli airstrikes across the Strip. Currently, there are 20 child patients who have been evacuated from Gaza and are being treated at our hospital in Jordan.

Since October 2023, healthcare has been consistently under attack, MSF staff and patients have been forced to leave at least 18 different health structures and have endured more than 50 violent incidents, which include airstrikes against hospitals, tank shells being fired at deconflicted shelters, ground offensives into medical centres, and convoys fired upon. 12 of our colleagues have been killed.

The Israeli forces’ sudden displacement orders and continuous attacks on medical and humanitarian facilities amid an expanding ground operation are crippling the humanitarian response in Gaza. On 24 March, Israeli forces targeted the MSF-supported Nasser hospital injuring several people and killing two, and MSF teams were forced to close and evacuate the Mawasi primary healthcare clinic after shootings and strikes were getting too close to the facility. On 18 March, MSF teams were forced to leave the Indonesian hospital and the field hospital they were building in the compound of the hospital, as well cease our mobile clinics in the north, as Israeli attacks intensified in the north. Israeli forces have also issued an evacuation order that includes the Indonesian hospital area.

Only 17 out of 36 hospitals in Gaza remain even partially functional after repeated targeted attacks on facilities. Hospitals such as Nasser and Al Aqsa have been bombed numerous times and some, like the European Gaza Hospital are now completely unfunctional because of attacks. There is not a single hospital fully functioning in North Gaza, and Al Shifa Hosptial in Gaza City had to stop dialysis for one day on 30 June due to lack of fuel. 

Humanitarian and healthcare workers have been repeatedly attacked. At least 479 aid workers, the vast majority Palestinian, have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war as well as 1,580 health workers.

In Gaza

Medical needs in Gaza are immense and continue to escalate as Israeli authorities maintain their inhumane blockade of Gaza. Without sufficient medical supply, MSF teams cannot expand activities to meet the ever-growing needs. 

MSF teams are having to restrict the criteria for patient admission to those with the highest urgency, as supplies are running out and the number of patients is increasing. Basic health care clinics are closing for new admissions at 9am because they have already reached maximum capacity. 

Since the start of the Gaza Humanitarian Fund distributions, hospitals and clinics have seen dozens of injured patients almost every day. The MSF clinics, Al Mawasi and Al Attar which is not typically equipped to treat trauma patients, received 570 people wounded from the distribution sites in the month since they opened.

As there are still limited amounts of food getting into Gaza, we see adults becoming visibly gaunt and an increase in the number of children being brought to our clinics with signs of acute malnutrition. Our teams reporting increased numbers of patients coming into clinics for malnutrition treatment. In the north, in Gaza city we currently have 369 children under 5, and 566 pregnant and lactating women enrolled in our nutrition programme. Meaning they are coming for outpatient treatment for moderate or severe malnutrition.  

The lack of access to basic needs is further fuelling the medical needs including outbreaks of infectious diseases, skin conditions, and other conditions linked to dire conditions. From January to May 2025, MSF teams conducted over 959,153 outpatient consultations, almost a fifth of those related to conditions linked to lack of water and hygiene, including scalp infections, skin conditions such as scabies and acute diarrhoea.

In the West Bank

The mental health needs of Palestinians in the West Bank continue to increase. In 2024, MSF teams saw an increase in different types of violence and hardship among our patients in Hebron area. 65 patients reported personal property destroyed (117% increase compared to 2023), 219 patients were incarcerated or detained (24%) and the most frequently experienced types of violence by MH patients are witnessing violence and home incursions.

Since January 2024, MSF started seeing patients who previously were able to get their medication within the regular health care system. Since December 2024, 52% of MSF’s chronic patients reported having experienced a stock out at the MoH pharmacy, and 39% reported having to stop taking their chronic medication.