Palestine: MSF mourns the killing of tenth colleague in Gaza

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is shocked and saddened by the killing of our colleague Alaa Abd-Elsalam Ali Okal by an Israeli airstrike on his apartment building in Deir Al Balah, central Gaza, Palestine.

Along with hundreds of others across the Gaza Strip, Alaa Abd-Elsalam Ali Okal was killed in the early morning of 18 March following the resumption of Israeli attacks. Hundreds more were injured in this abrupt end to the ceasefire. ​

Alaa Okal joined MSF as a laundry worker in September 2024 and played an important role in supporting people in need of medical care at MSF’s field hospital in Deir Al Balah. He was 29 years old. In this tragic moment, our thoughts are with his family, and all our colleagues in Gaza with whom we mourn his death and stand during these extremely difficult moments.

Alaa Okaal is the tenth MSF colleague to be killed since the war started in Gaza. ​ We condemn the killing of our colleague and call yet again for the respect and protection of civilians.

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.

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: