GENEVA (Palestine Foundation Information Center) Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)/Doctors Without Borders has called for an immediate end to the Rafah offensive and the ongoing atrocities across the Gaza Strip. Israel’s military strategy of repeatedly launching attacks in densely populated areas inevitably leads to the mass killing of civilians, it added.
MSF said, in a statement on its website on Thursday, that Israel’s military strategy of repeatedly launching attacks in densely populated areas inevitably leads to the mass killing of civilians.
It quoted Chris Lockyear, MSF Secretary General, as saying, “Civilians are being massacred. They are being pushed into areas they were told would be safe only to be subjected to relentless airstrikes and heavy fighting.”
“Entire families, made up of dozens of people, are crowded into tents and living in extremely difficult conditions. Over 900,000 people were forcibly displaced again as Israeli forces intensified their offensive on Rafah in early May,” Lockyear highlighted.
The organization’s statement indicated that medical staff and patients at an MSF-supported trauma stabilization point in Tal Al-Sultan in Rafah were also forced to flee on the night of May 27, as hostilities in the area intensified, effectively stopping all medical activities in the facility.
This forced the evacuation of yet another healthcare facility 24 hours after Israeli forces carried out an air strike on what they had designated as a “safe zone”, killing at least 49 people and wounding over 250 others.
The statement pointed out that these patients were stabilized and referred to field hospitals located towards Al-Mawasi, further west, as there are no remaining functional trauma hospitals able to cope with such a mass casualty event.
The organization pointed out that just last week, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to “immediately” halt its military offensive in Rafah and to let in desperately needed humanitarian assistance, and ensure it reaches those who need it.
“But Israel’s offensive in southern Gaza has since escalated, no amount of meaningful humanitarian assistance has entered the enclave since May 6, and the pattern of systematic attacks on healthcare has continued,” it added.
The MSF considered “all countries supporting Israel’s military operations in these circumstances are morally and politically complicit”, calling on countries, particularly the United States, United Kingdom, and allied European Union Member States, to do whatever in their power to influence Israel to stop the ongoing siege and continued attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure in Gaza.
The organization stressed that after nearly eight months into the war, there is no longer a single healthcare facility in Gaza that can handle a mass casualty event such as the attack on Rafah.
It concluded its statement by calling for respect and protecting medical facilities, their staff, and patients, and demanding that Israel immediately halt its offensive on Rafah and open the Rafah crossing point to let in humanitarian and medical assistance at scale and for an immediate and sustained ceasefire throughout Gaza.
