MSF calls on governments to take action to achieve a sustained ceasefire in Gaza

Médecins sans Frontières has recently issued an open letter to the governments and principal officials of various countries, urging them to exert all means within their power to ensure an immediate and sustained ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, and to demand that the Israeli government stop the deadly attacks on Palestinian civilians and allow crucial humanitarian aid to enter Gaza.

A temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas started on the 24th of last month to the 1st of December, giving the people of Gaza a brief respite and temporary access to medical supplies, food, and water. Though a seven-day truce is the first sign of humanity after weeks of relentless violence, it is by no means a solution of any kind. Besides, considering the immeasurable needs, these seven days are not nearly enough to organise the delivery of sufficient aid to meet the immeasurable needs. 

MSF colleagues, like so many people around the world, were aggrieved and shocked by Hamas’ attack on Israeli civilians. Now, words fail us to describe the absolute horror being inflicted on Palestinian civilians by Israel as it carries out incessant and indiscriminate warfare in Gaza for all the world to see. Despite Israel’s claims, its all-out assault is not being waged just on Hamas. It is being waged on all of Gaza and its people at any cost. 

From the start of its military campaign, the Israeli government enforced a “complete siege” on Gaza, banning the entry of water, food, fuel and medicinal supplies for the 2.3 million civilians trapped in the enclave. Added to this, unyielding restrictions have been put on humanitarian access and are preventing much needed aid from reaching anyone who needs it. Subjecting an entire population to collective punishment is a war crime as per International Humanitarian Law (IHL).

Israel has also shown its blatant and total disregard for the protection of Gaza’s medical facilities. They are being hit by strikes, tanks and guns, encircled and raided, killing patients and medical staff. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has documented 178 attacks on health care, including 22 fatalities and 48 injuries of health workers on duty. Three MSF staff have been killed, numerous other colleagues have been injured. Other fellow humanitarian organisations have reported dozens of their staff killed.

According to Gaza’s health authorities, more than 14,000 people have been killed, half of which are children. That’s one out of every 200 people in Gaza. Tens of thousands are injured. At least 1.7 million people have been displaced, according to the United Nations. These civilians have been forcibly ordered to move south but Israel is also bombing that area. Nowhere is safe.  

MSF emergency team in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, has reported massive influxes of wounded after intense bombing and airstrikes, including on overcrowded squalid refugee camps where people are barely surviving on the sparse humanitarian aid available. If the bombs do not get them, infectious diseases and starvation will. 

The health system has collapsed. Medical staff, including those of MSF, are utterly exhausted and beyond despair. They have had no choice but to amputate limbs from children suffering from severe burns without anesthesia or sterilized surgical tools. Due to forcible evacuations by Israeli soldiers, some doctors have had to leave patients behind and face an unimaginable choice: their lives or those of their patients.  There is no fathomable justification for such atrocious acts.

MSF recently sent an international emergency team to Gaza to support its Palestinian colleagues in bringing medical and surgical capacities to health facilities. Regrettably, their activities have been severely limited due to the scale of casualties, destruction of infrastructure, lack of essential supplies such as fuel and the ongoing insecurity. As a medical humanitarian organisation, we want and ought to be able to do so much more. Today this is just impossible due to the siege and unrelenting generalised warfare being unleashed by Israel.

Thus far, world leaders have failed to take any meaningful action to stem the relentless bloodshed and atrocities being committed in Gaza. MSF insists that a sustained ceasefire is the only way to stop the killing of thousands more civilians and allow for the delivery of desperately needed humanitarian aid. The indiscriminate and relentless attacks, forcible displacements, assaults on hospitals and medical staff, and the siege and restrictions on aid must all stop now.

MSF reiterates the call on the world leaders to take action to achieve a sustained ceasefire in Gaza, while also calling for the establishment of an independent mechanism to oversee the adequate flow of humanitarian supplies into Gaza.