Palestine: EU governments’ hypocrisy fuelling suffering in Gaza
The hypocrisy and inaction of the European Union and its Member States have allowed Israel to freely continue its massacre of Palestinians in Gaza with total impunity, said Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in a press conference in Brussels on Monday, 16 June. MSF calls for impartial needs-based aid to be facilitated into the Gaza Strip at scale, the protection of civilians, and the immediate restoration of a sustained ceasefire; European governments must act decisively to expedite this.
For more than 20 months, Israeli authorities and forces have inflicted a punishing campaign, including large-scale forced displacement, ethnic cleansing against Palestinians in Gaza. On a daily basis, our teams witness patterns consistent with genocide through deliberate actions by Israeli forces – including mass killings, the destruction of vital civilian infrastructure, and blockades choking off access to food, water, medicines, and other essential humanitarian supplies. Israel is systematically destroying the conditions necessary for Palestinian life. Gaza’s homes, hospitals, markets, water networks, roads, and power grids have been demolished, not by disregard but by design.
The European Union (EU) and European governments have the political, economic, and diplomatic means to exert real pressure on Israel to stop this assault and open Gaza’s border crossings to unhindered humanitarian aid. These are not theoretical instruments. They can be effectively mobilised in defence of international law and to protect civilians.
However, up to this point, the EU and its member states appear to have abdicated their political leadership to do so. Worse, recent statements European States have made, critical of how the war is being waged, highlights their hypocrisy as they continue to supply the weapons being used to kill, maim, and burn people who end up in our hospitals.
“The war in Gaza is one of the most egregious, deadly and ruthless wars waged on a people of our time,” says Christopher Lockyear, MSF Secretary General. “It is an orchestrated massacre of Palestinian people. It is purposeful ethnic cleansing.”
“Stopping this requires political courage, legal responsibility, and moral commitment,” says Lockyear. “The scale of suffering in Gaza demands more than empty rhetoric.”
Aid has been weaponised, used as leverage, conditioned, or blocked entirely. Since the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation launched its activities on 27 May, as part of the US-Israeli scheme to instrumentalise aid, hundreds of Palestinians have been treated in hospitals, and scores have been killed, after being shot at these aid distribution sites while waiting to receive the basic necessities for survival.
“The imposed system of aid delivery is not only a failure, but it is dehumanising and dangerous,” says Lockyear. “It exposes thousands of Palestinians to unnecessary risks, leading to bloodshed that can be avoided if humanitarian organisations are allowed to provide aid impartially and safely, at the necessary scale that is so desperately need in Gaza.”
Today, Nasser hospital, southern Gaza’s main referral hospital for thousands of patients in the area, is barely able to continue working, due to repeated evacuation orders and movement restrictions on staff and patients. In recent weeks, MSF teams admitted over 500 patients requiring medical care to the hospital, while supporting the hospital’s medical staff to respond to repeated mass casualty influxes from constant bombings and attacks.
“Humanitarian organisations have set up makeshift hospitals to fill the gap, but they can in no way replace regular hospitals,” says Lockyear. “The remaining hospitals must be protected, and the entry of aid facilitated. Failure to do so will cost yet more lives.”
MSF, like many organisations, has repeatedly called for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire, unfettered humanitarian access, and respect for international humanitarian law – including the protection of medical staff and facilities.
Several governments continue to express concerns about the horrific situation in Gaza, but their statements that invoke concern with adherence to IHL are shrouded in hypocrisy as they continue to send the arms that kill and maim the children we treat.
“What people are experiencing in Gaza is beyond unbearable: it must stop now,” says Lockyear. “As this military onslaught against a besieged people rages on, the hypocrisy of EU states who speak but don’t act, is more obvious by the day.”
Notes to editors
Since October 2023, MSF staff and patients in Gaza have been forced to leave at least 18 different health facilities and have endured 50 violent incidents, which include airstrikes against hospitals, tank shells being fired at agreed deconflicted shelters, ground offensives into medical centres, and convoys fired upon. Eleven of our colleagues have been killed.
13062025_EU_Gaza_Conference_Open_Letter.docx
DOCX 40 KB
Jane Rabothata
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, the organisation is recognised as one of the pioneers of providing Antiretroviral Treatment (ART) in the public sector and started the first HIV programmes in South Africa in 1999. Until today, the focus of MSF’s interventions in the country has primarily been on developing new testing and treatment strategies for HIV/AIDS and TB in Eshowe (Kwa-Zulu Natal) and Khayelitsha (Western Cape).
In Tshwane, we run a migration project, and we offer medical and psychosocial care to migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, who struggle to access public health services under South Africa’s increasingly restrictive.
Previously we offered free, high-quality, confidential medical care to survivors of SGBV in Rustenburg.
- SMS “JOIN” to 42110 to donate R30 Once-off
- Visit https://www.msf.org.za/donate
