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doctors without borders
Israel's Attack on Aid Organizations in Gaza Is an Attack on Palestinian Survival
What emerges is a coherent strategy: first, producing dependency through siege, destruction, and institutional dismantling; then, weaponizing that dependency by controlling or withdrawing the means of staying alive.
Jan 03, 2026
Israel’s decision to halt the operations of 37 international aid groups marks a dangerous escalation in its ongoing genocidal campaign, which has destroyed Gaza’s capacity to sustain life through bombardment and siege, and now moves to deprive survivors of the last remaining forms of assistance.
While framed as an administrative measure, this latest move cannot be understood in isolation. It is the culmination of a longer process that has unfolded over the past two years, as Israel has systematically dismantled the humanitarian and medical infrastructure sustaining Gaza’s civilian population.
By defunding and delegitimizing The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the primary agency tasked with aiding Palestinian refugees; and by leveling accusations against humanitarian and health personnel, in the absence of meaningful global pushback, Israel has further entrenched a longstanding system of weaponized aid.
While the Israeli government initially framed the suspension of aid groups as being linked to their failure to comply with new registration requirements, it later noted in a statement that the process was “intended to prevent the exploitation of aid by Hamas, which in the past operated under the cover of certain international aid organizations, knowingly or unknowingly.”
Such criteria not only regulate aid work; they effectively silence dissent, conditioning the ability to deliver humanitarian assistance on political conformity.
Israel has long accused Hamas of exploiting humanitarian aid, despite such claims having repeatedly been debunked, including by senior Israeli military officials themselves.The new regulatory framework extends well beyond technical compliance. It introduces explicitly political and ideological conditions for aid delivery, disqualifying organisations that have supported boycotts of Israel or engaged in “delegitimization campaigns.”
Such criteria not only regulate aid work; they effectively silence dissent, conditioning the ability to deliver humanitarian assistance on political conformity.
UNRWA Test Case
The dismantling of UNRWA was a critical test case. For decades, the agency served as the backbone of civilian life for Palestinian refugees, providing healthcare, education, food assistance, and social services, under conditions of Israeli occupation and siege.
After October 7, 2023, Israel intensified its efforts to recast UNRWA not as a humanitarian agency operating under an international mandate, but as a political problem to be neutralized.
Allegations that a limited number of UNRWA employees were affiliated with Hamas, or involved in the October 7 attacks, were rapidly generalized into claims about the organisation as a whole. These claims triggered sweeping donor suspensions—including the immediate freezing of US funding, among UNRWA’s largest sources of support—illustrating how fast states are willing to act on evidence-free allegations from Israel, whose overall goal is to avoid global scrutiny of its crimes.
The persecution of UNRWA thus demonstrated how easily a central pillar of the humanitarian system can be dismantled, setting the stage for what would come next, as Israel launched a broader attack on international aid groups operating in Gaza.
In the months that followed, Israel blocked UNRWA’s operations on the ground and passed legislation criminalizing its activities across historic Palestine.
The response from the international community was striking in its weakness: While some donors ultimately resumed funding to UNRWA, no binding enforcement mechanisms were activated, nor were any serious political costs imposed on Israel.
The persecution of UNRWA thus demonstrated how easily a central pillar of the humanitarian system can be dismantled, setting the stage for what would come next, as Israel launched a broader attack on international aid groups operating in Gaza.
The consequences of this latest move are devastating. For decades, such organizations have provided essential services, amid the systematic degradation of civilian infrastructure and repeated assaults on healthcare in Gaza. Groups like Doctors Without Borders and Medical Aid for Palestinians offer vital resources for emergency and trauma care, along with other key services to sustain Gaza’s fragile health system, at a time when many hospitals are damaged or out of service.
Buffers Against Collapse
The centrality of international aid groups to Gaza’s survival is itself a measure of the depth of destruction imposed on Palestinian society. Such actors have long operated in spaces where Palestinian institutions have been dismantled, and political solutions deferred.
In the absence of an end to Israel’s occupation and siege, their presence has become one of the few remaining buffers against total collapse. In the context of an ongoing genocide and the destruction of the infrastructure required to sustain life in Gaza, stripping away the remaining humanitarian presence amounts to a direct assault on survival itself.
The Israeli government has sought to downplay the impact of the suspensions by asserting that the targeted organisations “did not bring aid into Gaza throughout the current ceasefire, and even in the past their combined contribution amounted to only about 1% of the total aid volume.”
In Gaza, where Israel has already destroyed the material conditions of life, the suspension of humanitarian operations completes this logic.
But this calculation of material aid fails to capture the nature of the work and services these groups have provided, including specialized medical care, trauma surgery, rehabilitation for injured and disabled people, psychosocial and mental health services, and sustained institutional support to keep Gaza’s collapsing health system functioning.
In 2025 alone, Doctors Without Borders carried out nearly 800,000 outpatient consultations and treated more than 100,000 trauma cases in Gaza, while Medical Aid for Palestinians made many critical interventions, including through expanded cancer care in the territory’s north.
Israel’s 1% calculation, which has not been independently verified, reduces humanitarian impact to quantitative supply indicators, rather than lifesaving capacity. To present these organizations as marginal is not a factual assessment, but a narrative designed to normalize their removal.
What emerges is a coherent strategy: first, producing dependency through siege, destruction, and institutional dismantling; then, weaponizing that dependency by controlling or withdrawing the means of survival.
In Gaza, where Israel has already destroyed the material conditions of life, the suspension of humanitarian operations completes this logic. This is not a failure of humanitarianism, but part of a broader genocidal strategy, where the regulation and withdrawal of aid is used to render survival itself increasingly impossible.
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Critics Warn Israeli Ban on Aid Groups in Gaza 'Will Cost the Lives of Palestinians'
"Such arbitrary suspensions make an already intolerable situation worse for the people of Gaza," said the United Nations human rights chief.
Dec 31, 2025
Human rights defenders warned Wednesday that a new Israeli ban on dozens of international humanitarian groups from operating in Gaza will have a "catastrophic" impact on Palestinians already reeling from more than two years of Israel's genocidal war and siege.
The government of fugitive Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza—announced Tuesday that 25 humanitarian groups would be suspended from operating in Gaza starting January 1 if they did not comply with new requirements including providing detailed information on their staff, funding, and operations.
Israeli authorities say, largely without evidence, that the new rules are needed because some humanitarian workers are terrorists, and because Hamas is diverting aid—a claim refuted by Israeli military officials.
By Wednesday, the number of banned groups increased to 37. Targeted groups include ActionAid, Handicap International, Doctors Without Borders sections from six European countries, two Oxfam chapters, International Rescue Committee, American Friends Service Committee, World Vision International, Norwegian Refugee Council, Mercy Corps, Defense for Children International, two Caritas branches, and CARE.
"Israel’s suspension of numerous aid agencies from Gaza is outrageous," United Nations human rights chief Volker Türk said Wednesday in Geneva. "This is the latest in a pattern of unlawful restrictions on humanitarian access, including Israel’s ban on UNRWA, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, as well as attacks on Israeli and Palestinian NGOs amid broader access issues faced by the UN and other humanitarians."
"I urge all states, in particular those with influence, to take urgent steps and insist that Israel immediately allows aid to get into Gaza unhindered," Türk continued. "Such arbitrary suspensions make an already intolerable situation even worse for the people of Gaza."
"I remind the Israeli authorities of their obligation under international law to ensure the essential supplies of daily life in Gaza, including by allowing and facilitating humanitarian relief," he added.
European Commissioner for Equality, Preparedness, and Crisis Management Hadja Lahbib said Wednesday that Israel's move "means blocking life-saving aid."
"The [European Union] has been clear: The NGO registration law can not be implemented in its current form," Lahbib added. "All barriers to humanitarian access must be lifted."
British Member of Parliament Andrew Pakes (Labour-Peterborough) said on social media that "the Israeli government banning desperately needed aid from Gaza is not a sign of a working ceasefire."
"This, at a time of extreme weather and lack of shelter," he added. "We need accountability more than ever. And immediate help to save lives."
Doctors Without Borders—which also goes by its French acronym, MSF—told Reuters Tuesday that "if MSF is prevented from working in Gaza, it will deprive hundreds of thousands of people from accessing medical care."
Norwegian Refugee Council spokesperson Shaina Low said, "At a time when needs in Gaza far exceed the available aid and services, Israel has and will continue to block life-saving aid from entering."
British emergency physician Dr. James Smith—a health activist with Medact and the People's Health Movement and member of the Global Sumud Flotilla—told Al Jazeera Wednesday that many of the proscribed groups "have been working in Gaza for decades."
Smith noted that Doctors Without Borders this year "managed more than 22,000 operations," adding that "if international NGOs were de-registered, then approximately a third of healthcare facilities" in Gaza "would be forced to immediately close."
This, after Gaza's healthcare infrastructure has been systematically obliterated by Israel's assault and siege.
"It's going to be catastrophic," warned Smith. "A situation that is already horrific will be made more horrific. The changes will be immediate, and they will be ruthless."
Smith called the aid group ban "an extension of Israel's longstanding strategy of titrating humanitarian access and humanitarian services as a core pillar of the occupation and of the genocide."
Since 2007, Israel has maintained a blockade of Gaza, severely limiting the entry and exit of people and goods into the Palestinian exclave. The blockade was tightened even further when Israel imposed a "complete siege" on the strip following the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023.
According to UN data, Israeli forces have killed at least 579 aid workers—including nearly 400 UNRWA staffers—since October 2023. Israeli bombs and bullets have also killed over 1,700 health and medical workers, upward of 140 civil defense personnel, and more than 250 journalists.
Overall, Israel's war and siege have left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing in Gaza, and most Gazans forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened.
In recent weeks, more than a dozen Palestinians, including numerous children and infants, have died of hypothermia.
On Tuesday, Red Crescent Society in Gaza warned of a growing outbreak of hepatitis A and gastroenteritis caused by contaminated drinking water.
The International Court of Justice—which is currently weighing a genocide case against Israel filed by South Africa—last year issued a provisional ruling ordering Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza and affirming an earlier order to prevent genocidal acts. Israel has been accused of ignoring these and other ICJ orders.
Responding to the Israeli ban, Refugees International vice president for programs and policy Hardin Lang said in a statement Tuesday that "this action will cost the lives of Palestinians."
"Gaza is in the heart of winter, with hundreds of thousands of people living in makeshift shelters, damaged buildings, or the open air after repeated displacement," Lang noted. "Removing these humanitarian organizations now will deepen exposure, illness, and preventable deaths. The targeted organizations provide much of the core relief capacity in Gaza, particularly on healthcare services."
"The suspension is not motivated by a sincere desire to prevent diversion of aid; it is a pretext to further restrict aid to Gaza while silencing independent aid organizations," he continued. "The Israeli government’s broad claims about systemic aid diversion have never been backed up with credible evidence—as even senior US government officials have publicly acknowledged."
"Under US and international law, parties to a conflict must allow and facilitate the rapid and unimpeded passage of impartial humanitarian relief," Lang added.
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Many in Gaza to 'Lose Access to Critical Medical Care' as Israel Suspends Doctors Without Borders
"The humanitarian response in Gaza is already highly restricted, and cannot afford further dismantlement," the renowned organization warned.
Dec 30, 2025
The Israeli government said Tuesday that Doctors Without Borders, one of the largest medical organizations currently operating in Gaza, is among the 25 humanitarian groups that will be suspended at the start of the new year for their alleged failure to comply with Israel's widely criticized new registration rules for international NGOs.
According to the Associated Press, Israel's Ministry of Diaspora Affairs "said the organizations that will be banned on January 1 did not meet new requirements for sharing staff, funding, and operations information." The Israeli government specifically accused Doctors Without Borders, known internationally as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), of "failing to clarify the roles of some staff that Israel accused of cooperation with Hamas and other militant groups," AP reported.
In addition to providing medical assistance to desperate Palestinians, MSF has been an outspoken critic of what has it described as Israel's "campaign of total destruction" in Gaza. The group said in a report released last December that its teams' experiences on the ground in Gaza were "consistent with the descriptions provided by an increasing number of legal experts and organizations concluding that genocide is taking place."
Ahead of Tuesday's announcement, Doctors Without Borders warned that the looming withdrawal of registration from international NGOs "would prevent organizations, including MSF, from providing essential services to people in Gaza and the West Bank."
"With Gaza’s health system already destroyed, the loss of independent and experienced humanitarian organizations’ access to respond would be a disaster for Palestinians," the group said in a statement last week. "The humanitarian response in Gaza is already highly restricted, and cannot afford further dismantlement."
"If Israeli authorities revoke MSF’s access to Gaza in 2026, a large portion of people in Gaza will lose access to critical medical care, water, and lifesaving support," the group added. "MSF’s activities serve nearly half a million people in Gaza through our vital support to the destroyed health system. MSF continues to seek constructive engagement with Israeli authorities to continue its activities."
Pascale Coissard, MSF's emergency coordinator for Gaza, noted that "in the last year, MSF teams have treated hundreds of thousands of patients and delivered hundreds of millions of liters of water."
"MSF teams are trying to expand activities and support Gaza’s shattered health system," said Coissard. "In 2025 alone, we carried out almost 800,000 outpatient consultations and handled more than 100,000 trauma cases."
Israel's announcement came shortly after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with US President Donald Trump in Florida, where both dodged questions about their supposed "peace plan" for Gaza after more than two years of relentless bombing. The Israeli military has been accused of violating an existing ceasefire agreement hundreds of times since it took effect in October.
Al Jazeera reported Tuesday that "Israeli forces have carried out strikes across the Gaza Strip as they continue with their near-daily violations of the ceasefire agreement, with Israel’s genocidal war on the besieged enclave continuing apace and displaced Palestinians enduring the destruction of their few remaining possessions in flooding brought about by heavy winter rains."
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