Medical conditions in Gaza remain 'as hard as ever' despite truce: MSF chief
The president of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) says medical conditions in Gaza remain “as hard as they’ve ever been,” as a fragile ceasefire has failed to ease the besieged territory’s humanitarian collapse.
Javid Abdelmoneim, who worked as a doctor in Gaza in 2024, made the remarks on Sunday at the annual Doha Forum on diplomacy, saying medical teams are still operating under extreme shortages and unsafe conditions.
“While we’re able to continue doing operations, deliveries, wound care, you’re using protocols or materials and drugs that are inferior, that are not the standard,” he said. “So you’ve got substandard care being delivered.”
Abdelmoneim stressed that the current pause is little more than “a ceasefire of sorts,” noting that “several to dozens of Palestinians” are still being killed daily by Israel.
Israel and the Palestinian resistance group Hamas agreed in October to a US-backed truce intended to increase the flow of aid into the enclave, which has been devastated by nearly two years of Israel's genocidal war.
Despite the ceasefire, the violence has continued; at least 376 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks and airstrikes across Gaza since October 10.
“We’re seeing the injured patients in the emergency rooms in which we work throughout the strip,” Abdelmoneim said.
Aid agencies continue to press for expanded access for humanitarian convoys, while Israel has rejected calls to allow relief shipments to enter through the Rafah crossing from Egypt.
Abdelmoneim said that since the truce began, aid “hasn’t come in to the level that’s necessary.”
Abdelmoneim stated that both the severe shortage of medical supplies and the widespread destruction of hospitals in the Palestinian territory have left care fundamentally inadequate.
"Those two things together mean increased infection rates, increased stays and greater risk of complications. So it is a substandard level of care that you're able to deliver," he said.
He added that Israel continues to use humanitarian aid as a weapon of war. “There isn’t a substantial change, and it is being weaponized… So as far as we’re concerned that is an ongoing feature of the genocide. It’s being used as a chip and that’s something that should not happen with humanitarian aid,” the MSF chief said.
In 2024, MSF reported that its medical teams had evidence on the ground in Gaza, concluding that a genocide was taking place.
More than 70,000 people, mostly women and children, have been killed since October 2023, when Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza.
Despite the truce, large parts of the besieged Palestinian territory remain inaccessible due to the continued presence of Israeli occupation forces.
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