Humanitarian organisation Doctors Without Borders has suspended its operations in Gaza City due to a “relentless” Israeli offensive and heavy airstrikes.
The medical charity, known officially in French as Médecins Sans Frontière (MSF), said the deteriorating security situation, with tanks advancing within a kilometre of its clinics, had made it impossible to safely continue to treat patients.
“The escalating attacks from Israeli forces have created an unacceptable level of risk for our staff, forcing us to suspend lifesaving medical activities,” MSF said in a statement on Friday.
Jacob Granger, MSF’s emergency coordinator in Gaza, warned that halting services would leave the city’s most vulnerable people without care.
“We have been left with no choice but to stop our activities, as our clinics are encircled by Israeli forces,” he said. “This is the last thing we wanted, as the needs in Gaza City are enormous, with the most vulnerable people – infants in neo-natal care, those with severe injuries and life-threatening illnesses – unable to move and in grave danger.”
Despite Israeli evacuation orders, hundreds of thousands of people remain in Gaza City, MSF said. Many are unable to leave due to injury, illness or lack of resources.
Those who do attempt to flee south face “an impossible choice” between staying under heavy bombardment or abandoning their homes for areas where humanitarian conditions are “rapidly collapsing”, it added.
The charity stressed that demand for care in Gaza City has been overwhelming. Last week alone, its clinics carried out more than 3,600 consultations and treated over 1,600 people with malnutrition, alongside patients with severe trauma injuries, burns, and pregnant women in need of urgent attention.
Although it has pulled out of Gaza City, MSF said it would continue supporting Ministry of Health facilities such as Al-Helou and Al-Shifa hospitals, as long as they remain functional. Its teams in southern Gaza are still running programmes in Khan Younis, Deir Al-Balah and the Middle Area.
The organisation reiterated its call for “an immediate halt to the violence and concrete measures at the necessary scale to protect civilians”. It urged Israeli authorities to guarantee humanitarian access and security for aid workers, conditions MSF said are “clearly not in place today”.
The announcement comes amid mounting international criticism of Israel’s campaign in Gaza. At a special United Nations Security Council session this week, numerous states condemned Hamas’s 2023 assault, in which about 1,200 people were killed in Israel and more than 250 taken hostage, but went on to demand an immediate ceasefire and a surge of aid into Gaza.
Israel’s offensive has since killed more than 65,000 Palestinians and displaced 90 per cent of the enclave’s population, according to local health authorities, with warnings of famine growing.
Addressing the UN General Assembly on Friday, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu struck a defiant tone, insisting his government would not bow to international pressure.
“Western leaders may have buckled under the pressure,” he told delegates. “And I guarantee you one thing: Israel won’t.”
Just minutes after Netanyahu’s address, US president Donald Trump told reporters before he boarded Marine One at the White House to go to the Ryder Cup: “I think we have maybe a deal on Gaza, very close to a deal on Gaza.”
“It’s going to be a deal that will end the war … It’s going to be peace,” he added, without giving further details.
