GAZA: Ceasefire an opportunity for urgent medical evacuations

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is calling on governments around the world to drastically and urgently increase medical evacuations for thousands of patients who are unable to access the care they need in Gaza. These evacuations must be accompanied by a sustained effort to maintain the fragile ceasefire, which has been violated multiple times, and ensure a massive, unrestricted influx of humanitarian aid into the Strip.

With medical evacuations from Gaza set to resume on 22 October following a suspension since 29 September, MSF is urging governments around the world to save lives by urgently and drastically increasing this vital lifeline. Israeli authorities must allow patients to leave to access the treatment they need and ensure their right of return to Gaza.

“Palestinians in Gaza are enduring genocide. The health system lies in ruins,” says Dr Javid Abdelmoneim, International President of MSF and an emergency doctor who has worked in Gaza. “Israeli forces attacked hospitals, reducing them to rubble; killed, detained and forcibly displaced medical staff; and systematically blocked supplies from entering the Strip.”

As of October 2025, the World Health Organization (WHO) reports that over 15,600 people – one in four of whom are children – are awaiting lifesaving medical evacuation from Gaza. Patients include those with complex trauma injuries caused by bullets and bombs, or life-threatening and chronic conditions such as cancer or kidney failure. ​

“These patients cannot wait for the healthcare system to be rebuilt – they need urgent care today,” says Dr Abdelmoneim. “Between July 2024 and August 2025, at least 740 patients, including 137 children, died while waiting for medical evacuation. These were preventable deaths - caused not only by destroyed hospitals, but by political inaction.”

Even though thousands of patients are still waiting, South Africa has so far not accepted any people for medical evacuation from Gaza.

In an open letter addressed to heads of state, Dr Abdelmoneim warns that the ceasefire alone will not end the ongoing medical and humanitarian catastrophe that Palestinians are enduring.

While more humanitarian assistance is starting to arrive, MSF is calling for it to be rapidly scaled up – including medical supplies, fuel, clean water, food, and shelter – to meet the staggering needs of two million people, many of whom are returning to the ruins of their former homes with winter fast approaching.

As of October 2025, the WHO has confirmed that only 14 out of Gaza's 36 hospitals were even partly functioning. None are fully operational following systematic and direct Israeli attacks, including ground offensives, tank shells, and airstrikes.

According to the Ministry of Health, 1,722 health workers have been killed. Just a week before the ceasefire, two MSF colleagues – an occupational therapist and a physiotherapist - were killed by an Israeli airstrike while on their way to work. In total, 15 MSF colleagues were killed in the past two years. An MSF orthopaedic surgeon, Dr Mohammed Obeid, has been detained in harsh conditions since October 2024. We are urgently appealing for his release. The loss of health professionals is devastating for patients in Gaza.

“While some countries such as Egypt, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Türkiye and Jordan have carried their share of the responsibility, others have done almost nothing,” says Dr Abdelmoneim. “This inaction is indefensible.”

To underscore the scale of this inaction, MSF has published a ‘Medical Evacuation Leaderboard’, comparing countries’ efforts to facilitate patient evacuations from Gaza. The data reveals a stark imbalance: while a handful of countries have accepted thousands of patients, many governments who have the capacity to do more have accepted few patients, or none at all.

MSF is urging governments to:

Abdul Rahman, a Palestinian boy from the north of Gaza, nearly died during an Israeli airstrike while he was out looking for food for his family. Abdul Rahman has had many surgeries, both in Gaza and in Amman, to try to restore the function of his leg, which was almost amputated after the attack. Photographer: Moises Saman | Date: 29/08/2024 | Location: Jordan, Palestinian Territories

An MSF doctor tends to a patient injured in recent protests near Gaza's border wall, on September 25th, 2023. Photographer: MSF | Date: 25/09/2023 | Location: Gaza

Patients waiting at Al Aqsa hospital. 29 November 2023, Middle Area, Gaza. Photographer: MSF | Date: 29/11/2023 |Location: Gaza

Wael, 13, sustained injuries to his arms and head when multiple rockets hit his family's apartment building. Photographer: MSF | Date: 10/08/2022 | Location: Gaza StripOn 9 December 2023, Shahed, 16, from Rafah, Gaza, was sleeping when an Israeli airstrike hit her home, killing her father and sister. Shahed felt a lot of pressure, smelled smoke, and then remembered waking up in the ambulance. Shahed suffered a serious injury to her leg and almost had to have it amputated. After receiving surgery at the European hospital in Gaza, she was eventually evacuated and came to the MSF Reconstructive Surgery Hospital in Amman, Jordan, where she is receiving comprehensive treatment. Photographer: Moises Saman | Date: 29/08/2024 | Location: Amman

Jane Rabothata

Communications Specialist, Doctors Without Borders

• jane.rabothata@joburg.msf.org
• 0712873613

About Doctors Without Borders (MSF)

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is a global network of principled medical and other professionals who specialise in medical humanitarian work, driven by our common humanity and guided by medical ethics. We strive to bring emergency medical care to people caught in conflicts, crises, and disasters in more than 70 countries worldwide.

In South Africa, we currently run a non-communicable diseases (NCDs) project in Butterworth, Eastern Cape province, where we support the Department of Health (DoH) in improving care for patients with diabetes and hypertension. The project focuses on improving screening, diagnosis, management, and prevention of NCDs through advocacy, research, health promotion, training, and mentorship of Community Healthcare Workers.

MSF is also recognised as one of the pioneers in providing antiretroviral treatment (ART) in the public sector. It started the first HIV programme in South Africa in 1999. The organisation's earlier interventions in the country have primarily been on developing new testing and treatment strategies for HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis (TB) in Eshowe (Kwa-Zulu Natal) and Khayelitsha (Western Cape). The Eshowe project was handed over to DoH in 2023 after 12 years of operations. The Khayelitsha project was closed in 2020 after 22 years of activities and campaigning for improved HIV and TB treatment.

Other projects we have been involved in include our Migrant Project in the country's capital, Tshwane, which was handed over to authorities and a local Community-Based Organisation after building the capacity to work with undocumented populations. We also previously offered free, high-quality, and confidential medical care to survivors of sexual and gender-based violence in Rustenburg, North West province.

To learn more about our work in South Africa, please visit this page on our website (www.msf.org.za). To support MSF’s work: