Israel becomes first country in history to ban Doctors Without Borders

Israel has become the first country in history to ban humanitarian medical charity Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). The charity is among 37 humanitarian groups the occupation is banning from Gaza. Israel continues to use weather and disease alongside bombs and bullets to commit genocide against the Palestinian people. MSF is one of the world’s most respected humanitarian medical organisations and operates in war zones and crises globally.

On Thursday 1 January a group of 17 human rights organisations in Israel condemned the ban, saying that it:

undermines principled humanitarian action, endangers staff and communities, and compromises effective aid delivery. Israel, as the occupying power, has an obligation to ensure adequate supplies to Palestinian civilians. Not only is it failing to fulfil that obligation, but it is also preventing others from filling the gap.

Conditioning aid on political alignment, penalizing support for legal accountability, and requiring the disclosure of sensitive personal data of Palestinian staff and their families all constitute a breach of duty of care and expose workers to surveillance and harm.

Israel now requires organisations to provide detailed information on all staff who are in or might enter Gaza. The regime also bans any group that has a single director who has condemned genocide, opposes Israel’s apartheid. Even a social media post by the organisation or an individual are enough to incur the ban.

The coalition of Israeli groups, including B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, slammed the illegal new ‘framework’:

The new registration framework violates core humanitarian principles of independence and neutrality. Conditioning aid on political alignment, penalizing support for legal accountability, and requiring the disclosure of sensitive personal data of Palestinian staff and their families all constitute a breach of duty of care and expose workers to surveillance and harm.

The world’s civilised population – which is not the same as their governments – also reacted with disgust. Commentator Quinn O’Flynn said that the ban means nobody can honestly cling to illusions that Israel is not evil:

If you don’t realise by now that Israel is evil, you’re just an idiot. Like they banned Doctors Without Borders. You don’t need anything else.

 

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