In a statement on Sunday, Israel’s Diaspora and Combating Antisemitism Ministry announced that it was “moving to terminate the activities of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)—Doctors Without Borders—in the Gaza Strip.”
According to the ministry, the departure of MSF will take place by Feb. 28. In the meantime, Israel is seeking to provide alternative solutions for the medical needs of Gaza’s residents.
“Humanitarian aid, yes. Security blindness, no,” said Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Minister Amichai Chikli in the statement. “Unfortunately, MSF is once again demonstrating a lack of transparency and acting out of irrelevant interests. The organization abruptly changed its position after publicly committing to act according to procedure.”
He was referring to the fact that MSF has consistently violated “existing registration procedures designed to facilitate legitimate humanitarian activity while preventing the misuse of humanitarian cover for hostile activities and terrorism.”
One such procedure involves submitting a list of the group’s local workers.
“We are aware that MSF employs individuals active in terrorist organizations, which is why it hides its employee lists,” said Chikli. “The organization operates in coordination with the Hamas Ministry of Health, and not by coincidence, its statements were published in proximity to similar statements from elements within the Strip.”
Chikli pointed to the “unequivocal and irrefutable evidence that aid organization employees have simultaneously acted as terror operatives.”
If there was any doubt about that, NGO Monitor has provided proof that MSF is not only far from a neutral humanitarian organization, but is openly partisan. Against Israel, of course.
It’s accused Israel of “genocide,” “collective punishment” and “apartheid,” while lobbying foreign governments to halt arms sales to the country. Nor has it ever condemned the Hamas massacre of Oct. 7, 2023.
But it has frequently decried Israeli operations in Gaza, downplaying or omitting Hamas’s systematic use of hospitals, ambulances and medical infrastructure for terrorist purposes. No wonder it’s been refusing to disclose the identity of its employees.
By resisting such transparency, it thought it could dupe Israeli authorities into allowing it to continue collaborating with mass murderers under the protective international cloak—and guise—of selfless physicians devoted to helping Palestinians in need of medical treatment.
How ironic that it’s been doing so for the very people whom the terrorists have purposely maimed and killed, as well as tried to starve, in order to frame Israel for their deaths. Talk about giving new meaning to the Hippocratic Oath.
As NGO Monitor founder and president Gerald Steinberg told JNS’s David Isaac on Monday, “MSF has gotten away with using its massive annual budget ($2.4 billion) and the influence this buys to promote antisemitic propaganda ... and to avoid accountability for links to Hamas. But attempts to use bullying tactics through journalists and European political allies to avoid vital Israeli counterterror registration have failed. Their moral medical facade has been exposed for all to see.”
Indeed, even the best surgical masks can’t hide the group’s true face and ill will—for which there’s no cure.
Au revoir, MSF. Don’t let the door hit you in the derrière on your way out of Gaza.
