Palestinian Territories

During the Great March of Return protests in Gaza in 2018 and 2019, thousands of people were shot—mostly in the legs—by the Israeli army, resulting in often horrific and complex injuries. Our teams provide surgical and post-operative care, including rehabilitation and mental health support, to people who were injured during the protests.

Our patients have been exposed to critical events, such as witnessing violence, raids on their homes, arrests, and deaths of family members, and consequently, they have developed anxiety, stress, and sleeping problems. We run mental health programs in Hebron, Nablus, Qalqilya, and Tubas offering psychological and social support to victims of political violence.

In our burns and trauma centers in the Gaza Strip, we treat patients, most of them children, the majority of them having burns from domestic accidents.

Our teams are currently responding to the COVID-19 pandemic in the country.

Gaza

The health system in Gaza has been crippled by the 10-year-long Israeli blockade and, even before the COVID-19 pandemic, was struggling to meet patient needs, due to severe shortages of essential medical equipment and supplies.

MSF continues to provide orthopedic care in Al-Awda hospital, in the north, and post-operative care, for both children and adults, at our outpatient clinics. Services include physiotherapy and mental health counseling to help patients through long and painful treatment processes. We also run several projects in Gaza dedicated to the treatment of bone infection caused by violent trauma. In 2020 we opened a new one at Nasser hospital, in the south.

We supported Ministry of Health teams in the European hospital when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, donating oxygen concentrators and offering training on oxygen management, patient support, and intensive care.