MSF: “Israeli Ban” Threatens to Halt Our Activities in Gaza

The head of Doctors Without Borders, Isabelle Dufourny, warned that the organization may end its operations in the Gaza Strip next March if the Israeli entity does not reverse its decision to ban its operations, along with the activities of 36 other organizations.

Dufourny told France Inter radio on Saturday evening that “to work in the occupied Palestinian territories, staff names must be registered, and this registration expired in December 2025,” according to Agence France-Presse.

Doctors Without Borders has approximately 40 international staff members in the Gaza Strip and collaborates with 800 Palestinian staff members in eight hospitals. Dufourni added, “We still have international staff who were recently able to enter Gaza in the past few days.”

She continued, “We are the second largest water distributor in the Gaza Strip. In 2025, we treated just over 100,000 people with burns or other injuries, and we also have the second-highest number of births we perform.”

Dufourni considered the Israeli decision to be a result of the fact that NGOs “bear witness to the violence perpetrated by the Israeli army” in Gaza.

She added, “International journalists have never been allowed to enter Gaza, while the Israeli army targets and kills local journalists.”

She pointed out that “more than 500 humanitarian workers have been killed—including 15 members of Doctors Without Borders—in Israeli attacks since October 2023.” The Israeli authorities have imposed “new registration rules” targeting the work of dozens of international humanitarian NGOs operating in Quds, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, and are threatening to prevent 37 humanitarian organizations from entering Gaza. Doctors Without Borders described this decision as a “blatant overreach.”