PARIS: Medical charity Doctors Without Borders said on Saturday it will be forced to end its operations in the Gaza Strip in March if Israel does not reverse a decision to ban 37 international humanitarian organisations from the territory.
Earlier, Israel confirmed it suspended the organisations from accessing the Gaza Strip after they refused to share lists of their Palestinian employees with government officials.
Israeli authorities said the lists are now officially required for “security” reasons to prevent bodies it accuses of supporting terrorism from operating in the Palestinian territories.
Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, called the demand a “scandalous intrusion”, though Israel contends the measure is needed to stop Palestinians from “infiltrating humanitarian structures”.
Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on Friday for Israel to end the ban, saying he was “deeply concerned” by the development.
UN chief calls on Tel Aviv to reverse its decision
Stephane Dujarric, a spokesperson for the secretary-general, said Guterres “calls for this measure to be reversed, stressing that international nongovernmental organisations are indispensable to life-saving humanitarian work and that the suspension risks undermining the fragile progress made during the ceasefire.”
“This recent action will further exacerbate the humanitarian crisis facing Palestinians,” Ms Dujarric added.
NGOs included in the ban have been ordered to cease their operations by March 1.
“To work in Palestine, in the occupied Palestinian territories, we have to be registered. … That registration expired on Dec 31, 2025,” Isabelle Defourny, a physician and president of MSF France while speaking to France Inter said.
“Since July 2025, we have been involved in a re-registration process and to date, we have not received a response,” she said. “We still have 60 days during which we could work without being re-registered, and so we would have to end our activities in March” if Israel maintains the decision.
Ms Defourny said the Israeli decision is explained by the fact that NGOs “bear witness to the violence committed by the Israeli army” in Gaza.
MSF has roughly 1,200 staff members in the Palestinian territories — the majority in Gaza — including 40 international staff and some 800 Palestinian staff working across eight hospitals.
“We are the second-largest distributor of water (in the Gaza Strip),” Ms Defourny said. “Last year, in 2025, we treated just over 100,000 people who were wounded, burned, or victims of various traumas. We are second in terms of the number of deliveries performed.”
Several NGOs have said the new requirements contravene international humanitarian law or endanger their independence.
On Thursday, 18 Israel-based left-wing NGOs denounced the ban on their international peers, stating that “the new registration framework violates core humanitarian principles of independence and neutrality”.
The ban comes amid a fragile ceasefire in place since October, following the war waged by Israel in Gaza.
In November, authorities in Gaza said more than 70,000 people had been killed by Tel Aviv’s military. According to UN data, nearly 80 per cent of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged, leaving infrastructure decimated.
About 1.5 million of Gaza’s more than 2 million residents have lost their homes, said Amjad Al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO Network in Gaza.
Published in Dawn, January 4th, 2026
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