Gaza Tribunal: “We are witnessing genocide. The UK Government does not want to hear”

The Gaza Tribunal is a public tribunal set up to examine Britain's complicity in the Israeli Government's war crimes in Gaza. 
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“I am an emergency doctor and the Executive Director of Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in the UK.

MSF is an independent medical humanitarian organisation. We provide medical care to people affected by conflict and violence, epidemics and disasters. We also speak out about what we witness and experience.
We have been working in Palestine since 1989.

We currently have over 1,000 Palestinian and 40 international staff working in hospitals, clinics and other facilities in Gaza.

I am going to outline why we believe genocide is happening in Gaza and how we have tried to alert the UK Government of that.

Firstly, we are witnessing mass deliberate harm of civilians through killing and injury

The entire population of the Gaza Strip has endured relentless bombardment by Israeli forces for nearly two years. They are attacked by Israeli airstrikes, drones, and tanks.

Since October 2023, Israeli forces have killed at least 63,000 people, over 18,000 of them children, and a further 150,000 people have been wounded. An estimated 44,000 children are now orphaned.

These numbers don’t begin to cover the full horror given the number of people missing and yet to be accounted for. This includes Reem AbuLebdeh, a physiotherapist and member of the board of MSF UK, who we believe was killed alongside her parents and siblings in their house in Khan Younis in December 2023, when the area came under a massive Israeli ground and air assault. The bodies of her mother and sister were eventually recovered from the rubble in February 2024, but Reem’s body has never been found.

Reem is one of twelve Palestinian MSF colleagues who have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 2023.

There is no safe space in Gaza, and Israel's indiscriminate military assault across the strip demonstrates that it considers the entire population as a legitimate target.

Israeli military actions have repeatedly targeted civilians, with attacks leaving entire neighbourhoods in ruins and families wiped out.

Since June of this year, we have seen a new method of orchestrating the mass killing of Palestinians – the Israeli and US-led militarised food distribution system known as the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or GHF. There is nothing humanitarian about the GHF. Distributions at GHF sites are accompanied by extreme levels of violence and killings of Palestinian men, women and children, who have gone to the sites in the hope of receiving food, only to come under fire from Israeli soldiers.

MSF medical teams are treating people with gunshot wounds, barbed wire lacerations, and crush injuries from stampedes sustained while trying to receive aid at GHF distribution sites.

Between 7 June and 24 July 2025, in just two of our facilities in Gaza we received 1,380 injured individuals and 28 dead bodies from two GHF distribution sites. This represents only a fraction of the total number of people killed and injured at these sites.

During that same period, the Ministry of Health in Gaza reported that more than 1,000 people were killed and 7,200 injured while attempting to collect aid. One of them was our colleague Abdullah Hammad, who was killed on 3 July along with at least 16 people when they were targeted without warning by Israeli forces as they waited to collect flour from an aid truck in Khan Younis.

Secondly, we are witnessing deliberate mass displacement of the population and the destruction and targeting of the infrastructure essential to support life in Gaza

The IDF has forcibly displaced two million Palestinians in Gaza, often giving them only a few hours to evacuate, if they receive any warning at all.

Gaza, which is smaller than the Isle of Wight, now sees 87 percent of its two million residents crammed into just 12 percent of its territory—primarily in Al Mawasi, an area no larger than Richmond Park in London.
People are not given sufficient time to move safely. After countless displacements, many have run out of money and can no longer afford to relocate. And anyway, there is nowhere to relocate to.

This week Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, where MSF teams work, received the dead bodies of at least 9 people, including 5 children, who were killed while trying to collect water in Al Mawasi, the area of Gaza that is supposedly designated as a safe zone.

All our MSF colleagues have been displaced multiple times. My colleague, Dr Mohammed Abu Mughaisib, told us:

“Before she died, my mother told me, ‘Death can sometimes be a relief.’

I didn’t understand her at the time, but today, after all I’ve been through, I do.

Displacement is harder than death. I’ve been forced from my home, stripped of safety, carrying my bag from one destroyed place to another.

We endure hunger that eats at our bodies, a constant fear that drains our minds, and a psychological stress that never stops.

It follows us in every breath, every thought, every sound of the night.

And then there are the missiles and bombs—the roar as they pass overhead, the whistle tearing through the sky, the dreadful silence before they strike, leaving me to wonder: is it my turn now?

Now I know what my mother meant.

Death may bring peace, but what I live through—this hunger, this endless fear, this unrelenting stress—is a pain far beyond death.”

Through the destruction of vital civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, shelters, schools, food production capacities, and water treatment plants, the Israeli authorities are purposefully and systematically destroying the conditions necessary for Palestinian life in Gaza.

On 25 August, Nasser Hospital was targeted once again in a double airstrike. It is the only partially functioning public hospital in southern Gaza. The attack killed 21 people, including healthcare workers and journalists. One MSF colleague sustained injuries to the side of his chest.

Nasser is just one of many hospitals that have been repeatedly hit. Over 1,500 healthcare workers have been killed since October 2023, and hospitals are unable to function under the relentless bombardment.

As of 9 August, not a single hospital in Gaza is fully functional, and only 18 out of 36 are partially operational.

Amongst the humanitarian and healthcare workers killed were Dr Mohamed Abu Nujaila and Dr Ahmad Al Sahar, MSF doctors who were working in Al Awda hospital when it was hit by an Israeli strike on 21 November 2023. We had repeatedly informed the Israeli authorities that Al Awda was a working hospital with medical staff and therefore protected under international humanitarian law.

Our colleague Alaa Al Shawa, a nurse, was killed on 18 November 2023 when a clearly marked MSF convoy came under attack from Israeli forces in Gaza City, despite having authorisation to evacuate the area. Alaa was shot in the head. His MSF colleagues tried to stop the bleeding but were unable to save his life.

Israeli raids on hospitals have resulted in the arbitrary detention, torture, and forced disappearances of health workers, including MSF staff.

On 26 October 2024, during a raid of on Kamal Adwan hospital, MSF surgeon Mohammed Obeid was arrested with 57 others. He is currently held in an Israeli prison. No formal charges have been brought against him. For over nine months, Dr Obeid has been completely cut off from his family and has lost significant weight.

Medical staff appear to be systematically targeted as one element of the deliberate dismantling of the health system in Gaza.

The consequence is that civilians are left without life-saving care. Patients with trauma injuries, chronic diseases, communicable illnesses, malnourished children, and pregnant women are dying from preventable causes. Our medical teams are working under the harshest of conditions with little food for themselves while watching patients die due to the Israeli blockade and bombardment.

Finally, we are witnessing a blockade of supplies, and food being used as a weapon of war

Israel’s blockade of Gaza and deliberate obstruction of humanitarian assistance have all but destroyed everything essential for people to meet their basic human needs, turning survival into a daily battle.

As Israel controls everything that enters Gaza, the survival of Palestinians in the Strip lies at the mercy of Israeli authorities. On top of that, people are now obliged to seek food at GHF distribution sites controlled by the Israeli military, who regularly open fire on them, forcing people to choose between starvation or risking their lives for minimal food.

By preventing access to food, as well as choking off access to water, medicines, and humanitarian supplies, Israel has manufactured a situation of famine in Gaza.

During the 34 days while the UK Parliament was in recess, malnutrition rates among children under five tripled. Over 44,000 children are currently enrolled in our therapeutic feeding programmes. We are facing overwhelming demand at our four outpatient feeding centres across Gaza. Famine has now been declared in Gaza City.

Also while the UK Parliament was in recess, nearly 4,000 Palestinians were killed and over 16,000 wounded. Over 2,000 patients underwent surgery with little or no anaesthetic, and nearly 5,000 people were hospitalised with severely limited access to pain relief.

Due to lack of availability of medical supplies and poor hygiene conditions, people are suffering from recurrent diarrhoea and dying from preventable diseases.

This is a complete and utter humanitarian disaster.

And it is entirely man made.”