Gaza genocide
Last updated: 22 July 2025
An unprecedented humanitarian crisis is unfolding in Gaza. MSF is clear: We are witnessing Israel commit genocide.
MSF teams are seeing firsthand the campaign of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians being pursued by the Israeli military in Gaza. The UK Government is complicit in these atrocities.
Our teams have worked to treat the wounded and supply overwhelmed hospitals as indiscriminate attacks and a state of siege threaten millions of men, women and children.
Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is horrified by the events that began on Saturday 7 October 2023 with the mass killing of civilians perpetrated by Hamas in Israel.
MSF calls once again for the immediate restoration of a sustained ceasefire across the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Hospitals must be protected by all parties, and civilians reunited with their families. We call for aid - food, water, fuel and medical supplies - to be allowed into the Gaza Strip at a scale that meets the horror of the crisis.
We urge Israeli authorities and the complicit governments that enable these atrocities, including the UK Government, to end the siege now and take action to prevent the erasure of Palestinians from Gaza. Explained - Why is MSF using the term genocide?
How can I help MSF in Gaza?
Right now, our teams in Gaza are treating patients injured or affected by the conflict. This is only possible because of donations from people like you.
Your donation will support our medical work in Gaza and in current conflicts in the Middle East, including the West Bank and Lebanon.
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The current situation in Gaza: Latest news and stories
What is happening in Gaza?
As of July 2025, over 55,000 people have been killed in Gaza, including 12 MSF staff.
Our teams are witnessing: the deliberate targeting of medics and hospitals; the use of starvation as a weapon of war with a blockade starving people of food, water, fuel and medical supplies; the militarisation of aid, and the massacre of starving people queuing for aid.
In short, we are witnessing a genocide.
Through deliberate actions—including forced displacement, annexation, and mass killings—Israel is systematically destroying the conditions necessary for Palestinian life.
Much of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure has been intentionally destroyed. Hospitals have been completely overwhelmed and have faced running out of critical supplies. Some medical facilities have been hit by indiscriminate bombing while others have been under siege.
We are witnessing a campaign of ethnic cleansing as the very fabric of society and Palestinian life is being wiped away in Gaza.
This campaign not only displaces Palestinians on a massive scale but also seeks to deny them—and future generations—their right of safe return, effectively erasing entire communities from the map.
What is MSF doing in Gaza?
We currently have over 900 staff members in Gaza and 250 in the West Bank.
The majority of our Gaza team are Palestinian and many have now lost homes or family members in the violence. Throughout the war, MSF staff have been working at hospitals and clinics, providing essential medical aid that includes:
• Surgical care
• Wound and burn care
• Maternity care
• Physiotherapy
• Mental health support
• Vaccinations
• Outpatient consultations
Hospitals and clinics that we currently support or have previously supported include:
• Southern Gaza: Nasser Hospital plus the Al-Mawasi, Khan Younis and Al-Attar healthcare centres and the Al-Quarara clinic
(Previously European Gaza Hospital, Rafah Indonesian Field Hospital, Al-Emirati Maternity Hospital and Martyrs and Beni Suhaila clinics)
• Middle Area: Al-Aqsa Hospital and two field hospitals, plus the Al-Martyrs and Al-Hekker healthcare centres
• Northern Gaza: MSF Gaza City clinic
(Previously Al-Shifa Hospital and Al-Awda Hospital)
MSF teams have been working in Palestine since 1989, providing trauma care, mental health services and running a specialist reconstructive surgery project.
Border restrictions and the limited options for crossing into Gaza have made our supply operations extremely difficult. Israeli authorities imposed a full siege—the longest since the beginning of the war—blocking all aid and depriving Palestinians of essential services and the basic necessities of life, including access to water.
Despite the supposed lifting of the siege on 18 May, only tiny amounts of humanitarian aid have been allowed in. MSF has had nine trucks of medical supplies, under heavy restrictions, into Gaza. No fuel has entered and food distribution, either through the US-Israeli scheme or people waiting for the tiny number of humanitarian trucks allowed in are leading to deadly massacres.
In the first year since 7 October 2023, MSF delivered 636 tons of logistics and medical equipment (around 130 trucks). This included medicines, wound dressings, surgical kits, generators and two field hospitals.
MSF’s activities in the West Bank have been affected by the escalation of violence and movement restrictions that have limited people’s access to essential services, including healthcare. The impact on our patients' mental health has been a particular concern.
We have responded by expanding our work to reach communities directly, help local emergency services and support healthcare centres and clinics.
In Nablus, MSF provides psychological therapy and sexual and gender-based violence services. We also train first responders from the Palestine Red Crescent Society.
In Jenin and Tulkarem, we train paramedics and volunteers to respond to medical emergencies inside the nearby refugee camps when ambulances are unable to reach patients due to violent incursions.
Read more: Why MSF provides first aid training in the West Bank
MSF is an impartial organisation. So, we are sometimes asked why we do not currently run medical programmes in Israel.
We have offered our support to Israeli hospitals treating high numbers of casualties. However, Israel has strong emergency and health systems in place.
MSF focuses on filling gaps in healthcare and going wherever the need is greatest. Our teams are working in Gaza and the West Bank – as we have for 20 years – providing medical aid and supporting a healthcare system that urgently lacks both staff and supplies.
This is why we report on what our staff and patients are directly witnessing and experiencing.
MSF has had no direct knowledge of, or interaction with, any hostages in Gaza, and we believe that humanitarian aid should not come with conditions. However, we feel the anguish of families whose loved ones were taken hostage in October 2023 and hope for their safe return.
In any conflict, MSF calls for the protection of civilians on all sides.
Supply shortage and famine in Gaza
Our staff have repeatedly spoken of the wounded screaming without painkillers, how already sick people cannot reach care, and the fear of being hit in an airstrike.
In Gaza, the risk of infection has become incredibly high and is putting lives at risk.
Infected wounds are common with patients facing the double hit of unsanitary living conditions and a healthcare system that is unable to provide the in-hospital treatment and support that they need.
Meanwhile, infectious diseases – including diarrhoea, respiratory infections and hepatitis – are increasingly reported across Gaza. Access to safe, clean drinking water is particularly difficult, exacerbating living conditions, hygiene and health issues.
Pregnant mothers struggle to access maternity care and delivery rooms, leading to dangerous childbirth complications.
And, as food and water shortages deepen, the World Food Programme reports that 96 percent of Gaza's people face acute food insecurity. The UN warns that a high risk of famine is persistent.
Through the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, launched on 27 May, humanitarian aid, especially food, is being weaponised. It is being used as bait to forcibly displace people, to meet military objectives, or blocked entirely. Aid is not a bargaining chip. It is a lifeline. Denying it is collective punishment – a war crime.
Tell the UK Government: Hospitals are not a target
Demand protection for healthcare in conflict zones
What is MSF calling for?
“We are not sure that words can save lives, but we know that silence can certainly kill.”
These are the words spoken by Dr James Orbinski, as he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of MSF 25 years ago.
As a medical humanitarian organisation, MSF not only treats the wounded, but also speaks out about what we see and do.
MSF is an independent, impartial and neutral humanitarian organisation. We operate based on medical need alone, going wherever that is greatest.
Genocide is being committed in Gaza. And the UK Government is complicit.
MSF calls on the UK Government to:
- Speak out against the genocide in Gaza
- Push to end the siege and allow unfettered access of humanitarian aid, including medical supplies, into Gaza
- End all military cooperation with Israel and suspend all arms transfers to its government
- Allow for the evacuation of medical patients to the UK to be treated
- Respect the rulings of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and act decisively to end the war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide committed by the Israeli government
Take action: Demand your MP takes a stand on Gaza
The United Nations Security Council has ordered an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. However, the resolution was not implemented, which made it little more than political theatre.
Although a temporary ceasefire was later implemented on 19 January 2025, bringing much-needed respite to Palestinians in Gaza, the situation deteriorated drastically after hostilities resumed on 18 March.
Israeli forces continue to carry out widespread attacks that disproportionately impact civilians. Palestinians in Gaza are suffering every day from a destructive military campaign that blatantly ignores the rules of war.
States have obligations and must do everything they can to stop the continued killing. However, without an immediate and sustained ceasefire, and the entrance of meaningful humanitarian aid, we will continue to see more people die.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, MSF has witnessed systematic attacks against healthcare facilities and medical staff, with devastating consequences for people in need.
MSF staff and patients have had to leave multiple healthcare facilities and have endured many violent incidents. This includes airstrikes damaging hospitals, tank shells fired at clearly identified shelters, humanitarian convoys fired upon and ground offensives into major hospitals.
Israel has offered no accountability for the attacks that we have raised with them.
We expect Israel to follow the obligations of international humanitarian law and we expect Israel's allies to take their responsibility seriously beyond weak political rhetoric.
We demand accountability.
The Israeli offensive has made the delivery of humanitarian and medical aid nearly impossible. The Israeli government’s policy of deliberate deprivation only allows a trickle of food and water to enter Gaza and will inevitably lead to malnutrition and death.
MSF teams have witnessed the widespread impact of this food insecurity, however, Israeli restrictions prevent us from doing essential assessments and launching a full-scale response. What we do see is alarming and we cannot afford to wait for the emergency to get worse.
The urgent need to get more aid into Gaza is now desperate. Reopening crossings is a crucial tool and could help to bring in a larger flow of supplies that is only possible via overland routes.
In Gaza, aid has been instrumentalised to create an illusion of safety.
People have been displaced, often multiple times, towards designated “safe” or “humanitarian zones” which maintain a pretence of Israel’s adherence to international humanitarian law.
Israeli authorities and their allies must lift the siege on food, fuel, medical, and humanitarian supplies and revert to the pre-existing principled humanitarian system, coordinated by the UN.
On 1 July 2025 MSF joined more than 200 NGOs to call for immediate action to end the deadly Israeli distribution scheme that includes the the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
With hundreds of people killed and thousands wounded while seeking food, this scheme is slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid and must be immediately dismantled.
Explained: Why is MSF referring to what's happening as genocide?
This is not a term we use lightly. Our decision to describe what’s happening in Gaza as a 'genocide' is based on nearly two years of extensive, firsthand information from our teams, who are witnessing massive levels of death and destruction by Israeli forces, a campaign of ethnic cleansing and the almost total dismantling of the health care system.
Over the past 21 months, Israeli authorities have been responsible for mass killings, indiscriminate attacks, forced displacement, repeated failure to protect civilians, the deliberate destruction of homes and vital infrastructure, and the weaponisation of hunger in what amounts to collective punishment.
There have been multiple and well-documented dehumanising statements by Israeli officials calling for the annihilation of the population, or their transfer out of the Strip. The only reasonable inference is that the intention is to erase the Palestinian people from Gaza. This is why we believe that a genocide is taking place.
In the face of such atrocities, sanctioned and enabled by Israel’s allies, especially the United States and the United Kingdom, we believe it is our moral obligation to speak out with clarity.
In-depth: Attacks on healthcare
Throughout the war in Gaza, there have been serious and repeated incidents of attacks on hospitals, violence against medical personnel and obstructions to healthcare.
As of July 2025, 12 MSF colleagues have been killed in Gaza by Israeli forces since the start of the war.
Many hospitals that MSF supports have been hit by airstrikes or faced incursions by ground forces. Meanwhile, our staff and our patients have been subjected to dangerous evacuation orders that have put lives and the continuity of care at risk.
For example, the MSF-supported Al-Shifa Hospital was hit several times, resulting in injuries and deaths, in the lead-up to Israeli forces entering the complex on 15 November 2023. The facility was soon evacuated and became unable to function.
Elsewhere, MSF staff were killed in strikes on Al-Awda Hospital while clearly identified MSF vehicles have been destroyed by tanks.
The systemic use of evacuation orders affecting the areas around hospitals and the effective siege of multiple facilities has taken a shocking toll on the ability to both provide and access healthcare.
Currently, no healthcare facility in Gaza is able to handle the large flow of wounded people.
Treating the sick and injured, as well as protecting medical personnel and facilities is at the core of International Humanitarian Law.
Sign the petition: Demand the protection of healthcare in conflicts
All figures presented on this page are sourced by MSF directly or by medical and humanitarian organisations that include OCHA, WHO, the Palestinian Ministry of Health and the Israeli Ministry of Health.