Doctors Without Borders to governments: Take action for a lasting ceasefire in Gaza

Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) implores  governments to do everything in its power to ensure an immediate and sustained ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. We commend the Malaysian and Indonesian governments for exercising leadership together with Brunei in calling for a lasting cessation of hostilities in Gaza and the immediate provision of much needed humanitarian aid to civilians caught in conflict. We call on the Philippine government to do the same and add its voice to its regional neighbours given the immense human cost of this war.

Though the recent truce is the first sign of humanity after weeks of relentless violence, it is by no means a solution of any kind. Any respite for the people of Gaza is welcome, especially if it gives them access to medical supplies, food and water. However, considering the immeasurable needs, this temporary truce is not nearly enough to organise the delivery of sufficient aid to meet the immeasurable needs.

Doctors Without Borders is aggrieved and shocked by the Hamas attack on Israeli civilians. Now, after seven weeks, 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.

Israel has shown its blatant and total disregard for the protection of Gaza’s medical facilities. We are watching as hospitals are being turned into morgues, and even ruins. They are being hit by strikes, tanks and guns, encircled and raided, killing patients and medical staff. The World Health Organization (WHO) has documented 178 attacks on health care, including 22 fatalities and 48 injuries of health workers on duty. Medical staff, including our own, are utterly exhausted and beyond despair. They have had to amputate limbs from children suffering from severe burns –without anaesthesia or sterilized surgical tools. People are dying of pain. 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.

Doctors Without Borders recently sent an international emergency team to Gaza to support our Palestinian colleagues in bringing medical and surgical capacities in 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. 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.

Three of our Doctors Without Borders staff have been killed, and many more have lost family members. Numerous other colleagues have been injured. Other fellow humanitarian organisations have reported dozens of their staff killed.

Gaza, under an Israel-imposed blockade since 2007, is indeed the world’s largest open-air prison. 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).