How we're responding to the war in Gaza

MSF has over 1,300 staff working in Gaza's hospitals, clinics, and other facilities, including our field hospital in Deir al-Balah and our clinic in Gaza City. Our teams provide surgical care, wound and burn care, malnutrition screening and treatment, maternal and pediatric care, physiotherapy, vaccination, mental health support, water and sanitation support, and care for non-communicable diseases, among other services. We are also providing rehabilitative care for 13 war-wounded children at our reconstructive surgery hospital in Amman, Jordan, after successfully evacuating them and their caretakers.

Facilities we support

Extremely volatile conditions on the ground—such as Israeli forces’ recurrent evacuation orders and sieges of various hospitals—have forced us to continually adapt our activities throughout the war. As such, MSF teams have had to move from facility to facility to continue lifesaving work. Hospitals and clinics we have supported include:

• Nasser Hospital, European Gaza Hospital, and Martyrs, Beni Suhaila, Khan Younis, and Al Athar clinics in Khan Younis
• Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah    
• Al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza
• Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City    
• Rafah Indonesian Field Hospital, Emirati Maternity Hospital, Al-Najjar Hospital, and Al-Mawasi Health Post in Rafah 

Water and sanitation  

A lack of drinkable water, poor sanitation, and the destruction of water infrastructure have had dire consequences for people’s health in Gaza. Of more than 82,000 primary health care consultations MSF conducted in the first two months of this year, nearly a fifth were related to conditions linked with lack of water and hygiene, such as scabies and other skin conditions. This is why water distribution is an important part of MSF’s response.  

Between January and the end of April 2025, MSF teams distributed over 60 million liters of clean water and produced over 7.8 million liters through desalination. However, the already-dire water crisis in Gaza has worsened after Israeli authorities halted aid from entering the Strip on March 2, and then cut electricity on March 9, as water pumps and desalination plants require fuel and power to operate.Humanitarian aid and medical supplies  

Humanitarian aid and medical supplies  

Since Israeli authorities halted the flow of humanitarian aid and other supplies into the Strip on March 2, food, fuel, and medical stocks have been depleted. This total blockade of aid has deprived people of most basic needs and could lead to a high number of health complications and deaths.

Prior to the total siege, MSF provided over 636 tons of logistic and medical equipment from our international supply centers—as much as 30 planes or 130 trucks full. However, some supplies that are critical to our operations and the security of our staff have been difficult to transport into Gaza. These include generators, desalination stations and motor pumps, oxygen concentrators, vehicles, and equipment for communication. 

The medical needs in Gaza are immense and urgent, including for people trapped under rubble, pregnant women who are about to deliver, the elderly, and patients with chronic diseases. At the same time, the provision of care has become even more challenging due to the systematic dismantling of Gaza’s health system, with repeated attacks on health facilities and personnel, as well as shortages of essential supplies including vital medicines and medical equipment.  

The core medical needs our teams are seeing on the ground include:  

War wounds, crush injuries, and burns care

As Israeli bombardment resumes, our teams are again receiving mass casualties following bombings and attacks, with many patients requiring care for war wounds, crush injuries, and burns. MSF teams have seen an increase in the number of patients with burn injuries—most of them children. Many of these children were burned by bomb blasts; others by boiling water or fuel used for cooking or heating in makeshift shelters.

Infections

Infections resulting from poorly treated wounds are a growing concern, driven by the difficulty wounded people face accessing care and follow-up, shortages of supplies, and lack of access to hygiene.

Disease outbreaks

There is high risk of infectious diseases including diarrhea, acute respiratory infections, skin infections, and hepatitis due to overcrowding and poor hygienic conditions in camps where displaced people are sheltering, and shortages of medicines and medical supplies.

Food insecurity

With the aid blockade hindering the entry of food, including therapeutic food for malnutrition care, the nutrition situation in Gaza is deteriorating further as the risk of malnutrition increases. An April 2025 analysis by the World Food Programme found that food consumption has sharply deteriorated since the two-month ceasefire ended in March. Many of our staff, for example, have reported eating just one meal a day. In our hospitals, we're seeing children with severe burns from bomb blasts and cooking accidents who aren't healing properly because they aren't getting enough calories each day to fuel their recoveries. Malnutrition and related medical issues will persist across the whole Strip as long as the war continues and humanitarian access remains restricted.  

Pediatric care

Even before the current war started, many years of instability had already taken a toll on the physical and mental health of Gaza’s children, leaving many with life-changing injuries, amputated limbs, and the trauma of losing parents and other loved ones along with their homes and schools. Children are also especially vulnerable to various health risks arising from the lack proper access to water, food, and warm shelter. The health needs of children are so high that the pediatric department at Nasser Hospital was operating beyond its bed capacity from July to December 2024. Over a quarter of patients were admitted for respiratory distress syndrome, a condition that can present in premature infants and makes them even more vulnerable in dire living conditions many face in Gaza. 

Maternal care

Pregnant women in Gaza are forced to navigate severe obstacles to reach medical facilities for prenatal care or delivery, including traveling dangerous routes amid fighting and without safe transportation, which can delay access to care and increase the risk of complications. Those able to reach a hospital often find them without capacity, and end up giving birth in deplorable conditions in plastic tents or public spaces; others must return to their makeshift shelters mere hours after undergoing cesarean sections. 

MSF teams in Gaza have assisted more than 11,000 deliveries to date. By January 2025, MSF teams were carrying out more than 100 cesarean sections per month.

Medical supplies

While critical supplies like food, water, and electricity have been extremely limited throughout the war, the situation has become even worse since Israel halted the entry of all aid into the Strip on March 2, 2025. MSF teams are running out of medical supplies such as anesthetics, pediatric antibiotics, and medicines for chronic conditions like epilepsy, hypertension, and diabetes; and it has been impossible to restock items due to the blockade. Teams have been forced to start rationing medications and even turn some patients away because they don’t have the proper tools to treat them.  

In the West Bank, severe movement restrictions imposed by Israeli forces—including road closures, prolonged delays at checkpoints, and the installation of new gates at village entrances—impede people’s access to health care and basic needs. The situation has worsened with the onset of the war in Gaza, and MSF teams have observed an escalation of extreme violence since the two-month ceasefire was announced in January, particularly in Jenin, Tulkarem, and Tubas. The violence has forcibly displaced tens of thousands of Palestinians from these areas, with many living without proper shelter, essential services, or access to health care. Increasing state-backed settler violence is also displacing families.

MSF teams in the West Bank are expanding efforts to reach communities where people are unable to access care, bolstering local emergency response, and addressing the needs of Gazans who have been stranded in the West Bank after losing their work permits in Israel. 

Our activities include:

• Support for hospitals and clinics: MSF supports three Ministry of Health primary health care clinics in Jenin and Tulkarem and four hospitals in the Hebron area, as well as the emergency and maternity wards at Halhoul Hospital.
• Training for health professionals and volunteers: MSF is training psychologists in Nablus in collaboration with the Palestinian Union of Social Workers and Psychologists; emergency health care workers in Nablus; and Palestine Red Crescent Society volunteers on first aid and first response. We also train community members on how to provide basic first aid as health care access is often blocked
• Water and sanitation support: We supplied Khalil Suleiman Hospital in Jenin with over 500,000 gallons of water and over 2,600 liters of fuel; and provide pipe installations and portable toilets for displaced people in Hebron.
• Mental health care: MSF provides psychological first aid, psychiatric care, and individual and group counseling.
• Mobile clinics: Our teams run daily mobile clinics in Tulkarem and Jenin covering 30 locations; and run 15 mobile clinics in the Hebron area, providing primary health care, sexual and reproductive health care, and mental health support.
• Distribution of relief items: MSF distributes hygiene kits, food parcels, bedding, diapers, and clothing for displaced people in Jenin and Tulkarem; and hygiene kits to residents of Al Far’a camp through UNRWA. 

MSF does not currently run medical programs in Israel but offered its support to Israeli hospitals treating large numbers of casualties following the Hamas attacks on October 7. We focus on filling the greatest gaps in health care, and Israel has strong emergency and health systems. 

MSF provides medical care to anyone who needs it, regardless of race, religion, or political affiliation. As an organization, we focus on filling the greatest gaps in health care.  

To facilitate our humanitarian and medical work, we speak to all parties to the conflict to request safe, rapid, and unimpeded access to civilians who require medical care and to ensure the safety and security of our staff. Our independence and impartiality are essential to our work in all the places we operate across the globe. We also believe that the principles of impartiality and neutrality are not synonymous with silence. When the world turns its back on crises, we are duty-bound to raise our voices and speak out on behalf of our patients. Our decision to do so is always guided by our mission to do no harm, preserve respect and dignity, and protect life and health.   

Read more frequently asked questions about our work in Gaza >> 

MSF has continuously called for a sustained and immediate ceasefire in Gaza since November 2023, along with other humanitarian actors. While the temporary ceasefire implemented on January 19, 2025 brought much-needed respite to Palestinians in Gaza, the situation has deteriorated drastically since hostilities resumed on March 18. 

The flow of supplies into Gaza has been vastly insufficient throughout the war, but since Israeli forces imposed a full siege on March 2, no aid has entered the Strip at all. Access to water, food, and fuel are now reaching critical levels throughout Gaza. Many of our staff are eating just one meal a day, while the lack of fuel has forced us to reduce water trucking activities. The siege has also depleted medical stocks, and MSF is facing especially acute shortages of medications for pain management and chronic illnesses, antibiotics, and critical surgical materials. 

MSF calls for an immediate end to the siege, which has been the longest in Gaza's history, and allow the entry of food, water, fuel, and medical supplies at scale. 

With nowhere safe for Palestinians or those trying to help them, the medical and humanitarian response is severely struggling, leaving people with few, if any, options for accessing care.  

More than 1,400 health workers and at least 418 humanitarian workers have been killed since the start of the war, according to OCHA. Among them are 11 of our MSF colleagues, some of whom were killed while providing care or sheltering with their families. MSF staff and patients have had to leave 20 different health facilities and have endured 50 violent incidents, including airstrikes damaging hospitals, tank shells fired at deconflicted shelters, ground offensives in centers, and convoys fired upon. These incidents not only endanger patients and staff, but show a blatant disregard for medical humanitarian action and the failure of deconfliction measures.  

MSF calls for all parties to ensure safe routes to move humanitarian assistance into and around the Gaza Strip and for aid to reach those in need. 

According to the World Health Organization, about 11,000 to 13,000 people—including more than 4,500 children— remain in urgent need of medical evacuation. Israeli authorities must facilitate the medical evacuation of all patients who require treatment that is not available in Gaza. These patients must be able to travel with at least one caregiver, and there must be no prejudice to their right to a safe, voluntary, and dignified return to Gaza.