MSF says may have to halt Gaza operations in March

Banned from the Gaza Strip with 36 aid bodies, medical charity Doctors Without Borders said on Saturday it will have to end its operations there in March if Israel does not reverse its decision.

UN secretary general Antonio Guterres called on Friday for Israel to end a ban on humanitarian agencies that provided aid in Gaza, saying he was “deeply concerned” at the development.

Israel confirmed on Thursday it is barring 37 major international humanitarian organisations from entering the Gaza Strip, accusing them of failing to provide the list of their employees’ names, which is now officially required for “security” reasons.

MSF called this demand a “scandalous intrusion” but Israel says is needed to stop militants from infiltrating into humanitarian structures.

“To work in Palestine, in the occupied Palestinian territories, we have to be registered ... That registration expired on Dec.31, 2025,” said Isabelle Defourny, a physician and president of MSF France, on France Inter.

“Since July 2025, we have been involved in a re-registration process and to date, we have not received a response. 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 its decision, she said.

MSF has around 40 international staff in the Gaza Strip and works with 800 Palestinian staff across eight hospitals.

“We are the second-largest distributor of water (in the Gaza Strip). 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,” the president of MSF France said.

According to her, the Israeli decision is explained by the fact that NGOs “bear witness to the violence committed by the Israeli army” in Gaza.

An estimated more than one million people, or every other person in Gaza, still urgently need shelter assistance, the Office of the Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General said.

According to the office, the shelter assistance needs remain, although humanitarians have distributed thousands of tents and hundreds of thousands of tarpaulins and other items across the strip since the ceasefire, Xinhua news agency reported.

It cited the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs as saying that humanitarians in Gaza continue to help the most vulnerable families as harsh winter conditions leave hundreds of thousands of Palestinians struggling in makeshift tents damaged by rain, wind and seawater waves.

Meanwhile, UN partners working in water, sanitation and hygiene are facing challenges in managing solid waste as the gap widens between the quantity collected and accumulated, due to the inability to reach landfills, damaged infrastructure and fuel shortages, said the spokesperson’s office.

Despite the impediments, UN Children’s Fund-supported teams have removed 1,000 tonnes of solid waste every month since the ceasefire, helping safeguard the well-being and health of children and their families.

The UN Development Programme noted in December that solid waste management is among the most affected services, with only a few of the temporary dumping sites accessible and operational, compounding the environmental and public health risks, the spokesperson’s office added.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, the Inter-Agency Standing Committee, bringing together UN entities and their partners, urged the Israeli authorities to reconsider their plan to ban many international non-governmental organisations from operating, stressing that those organizations are central to humanitarian operations in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Nearly 80 per cent of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged by the war, according to UN data, leaving infrastructure decimated.

Agencies