Sydney, 4 December, 2023 – Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) urges the Australian Government to exert all means in its power to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire to prevent further carnage in Gaza. A sustained ceasefire is the only way to stop the killing of thousands more civilians and allow for the delivery of desperately needed humanitarian aid.
Thus far, states including Australia, have been complicit either by funding or providing Israel with weapons and military support or have made no efforts other than empty words, failing to stem the relentless bloodshed and atrocities being committed in Gaza.
War is being waged on all of Gaza and its people at any cost. Attacks on hospitals and indiscriminate warfare have been the norm rather than the exception in a military doctrine that defies both basic humanity and the rules of war.
“Israel has shown its blatant and total disregard for the protection of Gaza’s medical facilities. We are watching as hospitals are being turned into morgues and even ruins. They are being hit by strikes, tanks and guns, encircled and raided, killing patients and medical staff.”
Since 7 October, the World Health Organization (WHO) has documented 178 attacks on healthcare in Gaza, including 22 fatalities and 48 injuries of health workers on duty. Medical personnel, including MSF staff, are exhausted and beyond despair.
“They have had to amputate limbs from children suffering from severe burns without anesthesia or sterilised surgical tools. People are dying of pain. Due to forcible evacuations by Israeli soldiers, some doctors have had to leave patients behind and faced an unimaginable choice: their lives or those of their patients. There is no fathomable justification for such atrocious acts,” said Tierney.
MSF recently sent an international emergency team to Gaza to support our Palestinian colleagues. Regrettably, their activities have been severely limited due to the scale of casualties, destruction of infrastructure, lack of essential supplies such as fuel and the ongoing insecurity. MSF ought to be able to do so much more. Today this is just impossible due to the siege and unrelenting generalized warfare being unleashed by Israel.
Three of our MSF staff have been killed, many more have lost family members. Numerous other colleagues have been injured. Other humanitarian organisations have reported dozens of their staff killed.
Gaza, under an Israel-imposed blockade since 2007, is indeed the world’s largest open-aired prison. From the start of its military campaign after 7 October, the Israeli government enforced a “complete siege” on Gaza, banning the entry of water, food, fuel and medicinal supplies for the 2.3 million civilians trapped in the enclave. Added to this, unyielding restrictions have been put on humanitarian access and are preventing much needed aid from reaching anyone who needs it. Subjecting an entire population to collective punishment is a war crime as per International Humanitarian Law (IHL).
Despite Israel’s claims, its all-out assault is not being waged just on Hamas. It is being waged on all of Gaza and its people at any cost. Even wars have rules, but Israel is clearly trading them in for its own military doctrine based on disproportionality. In the early days of this unbearable offensive, the spokesman for Israel’s Defense Forces (IDF) announced that the “emphasis” of this flagrantly excessive reprisal was to be on “damage and not accuracy”. It is safe to say Israel’s actions have spoken louder than their words.
Notes
More than 14,000 people in Gaza have been killed, half of which are children, according to Gaza’s health authorities. That’s one out of every 200 people in Gaza. Tens of thousands are injured. Families are digging their dead loved ones out from under the rubble. At least 1.7 million people have been displaced, according to the United Nations.
MSF emergency team in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, have reported massive influxes of wounded after intense bombing and airstrikes, including on overcrowded squalid refugee camps where people are barely surviving on the sparse humanitarian aid available.
In the West Bank, MSF teams also report attacks on healthcare with a surge in violence, persecution and harassment. According to the United Nations over 200 Palestinians have been killed since 7 October, either by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) or settlers.
MSF Australia was established in 1995 and is one of 24 international MSF sections committed to delivering medical humanitarian assistance to people in crisis. In 2022, more than 120 project staff from Australia and New Zealand worked with MSF on assignment overseas. MSF delivers medical care based on need alone and operates independently of government, religion or economic influence and irrespective of race, religion or gender. For more information visit msf.org.au
