Gaza–Israel War

Accessing health care has become increasingly difficult for the wounded and the sick in Gaza, adding to an already shocking toll from this war. Malnutrition is prevalent, communicable diseases are spreading and clean water is scarce.

Infections from poorly treated wounds are putting lives at risk. WHO also reports an increase in infectious diseases including diarrhea, acute respiratory infections, skin infections and outbreaks such as hepatitis. Pregnant mothers struggle to find access to delivery rooms because of crowding in hospitals.

Due to the unprecedented number of wounded and the severity and complexity of injuries, we need to provide safe and medicalised passage to health facilities outside of Gaza. Palestinians who are medically evacuated must retain the right to return home to Gaza as required under international human rights law.

Our mental health teams are addressing the psychological toll of war and forced displacement on the emotional wellbeing of children.

We began working in Palestine in 1989 and have provided medical programs in Gaza for more than 20 years.

Working in three hospitals and several outpatient clinics, we offer comprehensive care for people suffering from burns and trauma. The care includes surgery, physiotherapy, psychological support, occupational therapy and health education.

Since 2018, we have also been running a reconstructive surgery programme in northern Gaza. This is crucial since Gaza’s local healthcare system is overstretched and underfunded and deeply impacted by more than a decade of blockade.

Since we run programs only in Palestine, our reporting is rooted in the direct witnessing of our patients and staff on the ground. However, we have offered support to Israeli hospitals treating casualties from these attacks.

We are a humanitarian organisation, which means we treat everyone who needs help, but our resources are not unlimited: we focus them where they are needed most.

The Palestinian healthcare systems, in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip, have been crippled by more than 70 years of occupation and more than 10 years of blockade. They are unable to meet the basic health needs of their respective populations.

We offered support to Israel in response to the 7 October Hamas attacks, but this was respectfully declined.

One of the central pillars of our identity is to bear witness and call attention to the problems driving emergency needs in the places where we provide humanitarian assistance.

We have a history of speaking out and advocacy when governments or other actors implement policies that threaten the health and safety of our patients or our staff.

International humanitarian law and the rules of war require militaries to distinguish between civilians and combatants and prohibit attacks that cause disproportionate harm to civilians and civilian objects. The way Israel is prosecuting this war is causing massive death and suffering among Palestinian civilians and is inconsistent with these norms and laws.

Medical facilities and their surrounding areas have repeatedly been attacked or subjected to evacuation orders by Israeli forces, making access to healthcare extremely dangerous for patients and putting the lives of medical staff at risk. This compels us to speak out and demand an immediate ceasefire.

We were horrified by Hamas’ massacre in Israel on 7 October, and we are horrified by Israel’s response. As humanitarians, we grieve for all civilian lives lost, and the vast majority of the victims of this conflict are civilians, including many elderly people, women and children. Violence against civilians is never justified, and all civilians deserve protection.

Our reporting is based on what our patients and staff tell us they are seeing on the ground in Gaza, where the Israeli military campaign and siege have had devastating consequences. The healthcare system has collapsed, and hospitals have run out of medicine, medical supplies, and fuel for generators. People have limited access to food, water, shelter, and electricity. And the death toll continues to rise.

We are calling for a sustained ceasefire because widespread and indiscriminate attacks on civilians—including attacks on healthcare—have made it impossible to deliver the humanitarian assistance needed in Gaza.

We offer medical humanitarian assistance to people based solely on need, irrespective of race, religion, gender or political affiliation. As an organisation, we focus on filling the greatest gaps in healthcare.

We have no agenda except to go where needed and treat patients, and we are struggling to do so in Gaza because of lack of medicine, medical supplies and fuel for generators.

We take any allegation of anti-Semitism extremely seriously. At any time, we have about 68,000 people working in our projects and headquarters. Any form of bigotry or discrimination by MSF staff is unacceptable.

We do not believe criticism of Israeli government policies is equivalent to anti-Semitism.

We speak out when governments or actors implement policies that harm the health and safety of our patients or our staff. The way Israel is prosecuting this war is causing massive death and suffering among Palestinian civilians and putting our staff at risk. This is inconsistent with the norms and laws of war.

No state is above criticism.

As humanitarians, we grieve for all civilian lives lost, and the majority of the victims of this conflict are civilians, including many elderly people, women and children. Violence against civilians is never justified, and all civilians deserve protection.

We coordinate our work through the Ministry of Health in Gaza. We maintain contact with the Ministry of Interior in Gaza, just as we maintain contact with the Israeli authorities, to ensure the safety of our teams in Gaza.

Al Helou Maternity Hospital

Ministry of Health facility with Ministry of Health and MSF staff
This is a private hospital to which the Ministry of Health has relocated the maternity department of Al Shifa Hospital. Our teams support a maternity emergency room, a 30-bed inpatient maternity department with delivery rooms and operating theatres, and a 10-bed newborn intensive care unit. We also provide infection prevention and control, mental healthcare and health promotion.

MSF (Paris) clinic

MSF facility with MSF staff
The basic healthcare we provide in this clinic includes general consultation, dressing of wounds, physiotherapy, screening for malnutrition and treatment for non-communicable diseases. We also provide support for sexual and reproductive health, following up pregnant women for antenatal and postnatal care and providing gynaecological consultations and family planning. Since the attacks in March, we are increasing capacity for physiotherapy and wound care and have started referring patients with severe facial burns to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis for masks from a 3D printer.

MSF (Brussels) clinic

MSF facility with MSF staff
Following the resumption of war in March and the closure of mobile clinics, we have converted our former office into a clinic providing basic healthcare—malnutrition screening, non-communicable diseases treatment and wound care—for a limited number of patients each day.

Sheikh Radwan Primary Health Care Centre

Ministry of Health facility with Ministry of Health and MSF staff
We began supporting this Ministry of Health centre in January 2025, focusing primarily on training staff for nutrition, emergency and wound care. The attacks in March forced us to stop operating a mobile clinic from which we provided basic healthcare and distributed clean water.

Al-Aqsa Hospital

Ministry of Health facility with MSF staff
We provide acute trauma surgery in the emergency room. We also provide advanced and post-operative wound care, physiotherapy, malnutrition screening and referral, mental health services and health promotion.

Al Hekker Primary Health Care Centre

MSF facility with MSF staff
We provide outpatient services including general and paediatric consultations for acute and chronic conditions, wound dressing and minor surgery, vaccinations, malnutrition screening and ambulatory nutritional treatment for children and pregnant and breastfeeding women, reproductive healthcare including antenatal and postnatal care and family planning, mental health services and health promotion. But since the attacks in March 2025, we have reduced capacity. 

Field hospital 

Ministry of Health facility with Ministry of Health and MSF staff
As a response to the devastation of the health system, we opened this 50-bed hospital in collaboration with the Ministry of Health. The hospital has emergency, outpatient and inpatient departments and an operating theatre, which includes capacity for orthopaedic, vascular and plastic surgery.

Nasser Hospital

Ministry of Health facility with Ministry of Health and MSF staff
This is one of the last remaining partially functioning hospitals in southern Gaza. Since the attacks in March, our teams have not returned to the paediatric and maternity department but continue to operate a trauma/orthopaedic/burn unit, two operating rooms, 67 inpatient beds, four intermediate care beds, an outpatient department for wound care and physiotherapy and a daycare surgery service for trauma and burn patients. We are also supporting the emergency department, providing mental health services and have relaunched the use of 3D printing masks for patients with severe facial burns.

Khan Younis Primary Healthcare Centre

MSF facility with MSF staff
With an influx of people from Rafah and a lack of facilities to meet trauma needs, we expanded activities to provide an emergency service for managing simple cases while stabilising and referring complex cases. We also provide outpatient consultations, wound care and physiotherapy, vaccinations, sexual and reproductive healthcare, mental health services and health promotion and operate an ambulatory therapeutic feeding centre.

Al Attar Primary Healthcare Centre

MSF facility with MSF staff
Restriction on movement because of the security situation forced us to reduce capacity of the centre but not the 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week emergency room. The centre  provides general and paediatric consultations for acute and chronic conditions, wound care, vaccinations, antenatal and postnatal care, malnutrition screening, mental health services and health promotion. We also operate an ambulatory therapeutic feeding centre for children and pregnant and breastfeeding women. 

Al Qarara Sexual and Reproductive Health Clinic

Private health facility with PalMed staff
We are supporting PalMed, a diaspora-based Palestinian medical organisation, with medications, incentives and running costs. This enables the clinic to provide general medical consultations, sexual and reproductive healthcare and malnutrition screening, and to operate an ambulatory therapeutic feeding centre for children and pregnant and breastfeeding women.

Al-Mawasi Primary Health Care Centre

MSF facility with MSF staff
The advancement of Israeli troops forced us to evacuate and suspend activities on 24 March 2025. The centre includes a 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week emergency room, which we opened again on 29 March 2025. While we have reduced capacity, we provide outpatient services including general and paediatric consultations for acute and chronic conditions, wound dressing and minor surgery, vaccinations, reproductive healthcare including antenatal and postnatal care and family planning, mental health services and health promotion. We also operate an ambulatory therapeutic feeding centre for children and pregnant and breastfeeding women.

Water and Sanitation

We produced almost 8 million litres and distributed more than 60 million litres of clean water between January and the end of April 2025. But the resumption of war in March forced us to cancel distribution in Rafah, Beit Lahya and Beit Hanoun and, with extensive evacuation orders, to limit the area of intervention. No new water, sanitation and hygiene items have entered the Gaza Strip since the siege began on 2 March.

Since February 2024, in partnership with the Agriculture Development Association, we have implemented water and sanitation activities in camp shelters in Deir El Balah and Khan Younis. These activities have included building latrines, providing hygiene kits and water treatment units and providing accessible latrines and showers for a camp hosting 70 families with members who have a disability.

Hebron

Our focus in this governorate—including Dura, Hebron’s Old City, the Masafer Bani Naim and the hamlets of Masafer Yatta—is on basic healthcare, mental health support and health promotion.

The 15 mobile clinics we operate provide basic care, sexual and reproductive health and mental health services. We provide mental health support, supply first aid kits and distribute essential items such as food parcels and hygiene kits along with portable toilets in six communities, including camps for people forced from their homes. And we support four hospitals, including the emergency and maternity wards of Halhul Hospital, by building capacity and donating supplies.

We also offer “safe spaces” activities in three villages and in H2, an area under Israeli military control encompassing about 20 per cent of the city of Hebron.

Nablus, Qalqiliya and Tubas

Our teams in these governorates focus on training: doctors and nurses in the emergency rooms of three hospitals; psychologists in collaboration with the Palestinian Union of Social Workers and Psychologists, and; Palestine Red Crescent Society volunteers as first aid providers and first responders.

We equipped six Ministry of Health and Palestine Red Crescent Society stabilisation points to mitigate access constraints for patients and ambulances. And, through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, we provided 100 hygiene kits to the Al Far’a camp for people forced from their homes.

And we operate a mobile clinic providing basic care and care for mental and sexual and reproductive health.

Jenin and Tulkarem

We operate mobile clinics covering 30 locations in these two governorates. We also support nine shelters for Gazan workers and five Ministry of Health basic healthcare clinics, providing treatment for chronic conditions, respiratory infections and musculoskeletal disorders while offering mental health support.

We supplied more than 2 million litres of water and 10,000 litres of fuel to Khalil Suleiman Hospital, mitigating shortages caused by military operations and financial restrictions.

In Jenin, we collaborated with local organisations to deliver 900 bedding items. In addition to these mattresses, blankets and pillows, we are planning to distribute 200 hygiene kits and 100 packets of nappies. People forced from their homes in winter now lack clothes for summer, so we have distributed almost 70 clothes vouchers to the most vulnerable families. The families can use the vouchers to buy the types of clothes they prefer, which maintains their dignity.

In Tulkarem, we distributed more than 1,000 weekly food parcels, 350 to families in the refugee camp with the help of the Palestine Red Crescent Society. We have also provided essential supplies to 450 displaced people living in unfinished buildings.