The Israeli Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism said on Sunday it is terminating the humanitarian operations of the international charity Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF) in Gaza after the organisation failed to provide a list of its Palestinian staff. The ministry noted that the group will cease its work and leave Gaza by February 28th.
In December, the ministry announced it would prevent 37 aid organisations, including MSF, from operating in Gaza from March 1 for failing to provide detailed information about their Palestinian staff. According to the ministry, two MSF employees had links with the terrorist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad. MSF denied the claim. .
In its statement the ministry said MSF had committed in early January that it would share the staff list as required by the Israeli authorities, but then backtracked and did not transfer the lists, annoucing “it does not intend to proceed with the registration process at all, contradicting its previous statements and the binding protocol.”
In a statement posted on its website on Friday, MSF acknowledged that it had, as an “exceptional measure,” agreed to share a list of names of its Palestinian and international staff with the Israeli authorities. However, MSF claimed, it had not received assurances that the staff information would only be used for administrative purposes, so they decided not to share the information.
