Doctors Without Borders Out Far and In Deep with Hamas

Doctors Without Borders (Médecins sans Frontières), or MSF, for much of its history has been a neutral humanitarian organization that provides medical treatment for civilians in crisis areas, where war, famine, and natural disasters have occurred. But it has in recent years been steadily abandoning its neutrality in the Middle East, where it has clearly taken the side of the Palestinians, including their terror groups, against the imperiled state and people of Israel. More on this disturbing metamorphosis of Doctors Without Borders — MSF — into a willing collaborator of the PA and even of Hamas, can be found here: “Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières), an Accomplice of Hamas?,” by Alain Destexhe, Gatestone Institute, December 19, 2023:

The public statements since October 7 of Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF) and its employees, on the ground in Gaza, show a systematic bias in favor of Hamas and hostility to Israel. MSF has failed in its humanitarian purpose and violated its own charter, which proclaims “assistance… irrespective of race, religion, creed or political convictions.”…

MSF is often quoted by the international media and is seen by public opinion as an objective, neutral and independent observer of the conflict in the region. Because of the history of the organization, which in 1999 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the French and international media have blind faith in MSF when it comes to reporting what it states….

MSF is still seen by much of the world as an “objective, neutral, and independent” body in the war between Israel and the Palestinian groups that would destroy it. After all, MSF describes itself as such a neutral and independent body, so why should anyone be churlish enough to raise a skeptical eyebrow? The MSF even has a Nobel Prize for Peace to sanctify it. But MSF in Gaza has uncritically parroted the propaganda of Hamas, and at the same time, shown an indifference to Israeli suffering. Its refusal, after nearly three months, to issue a single statement about the atrocities carried out by Hamas on October 7, is both telling, and intolerable.

Despite being subject to the MSF Charter, a significant proportion of its staff seem to share the Hamas point of view and support the terrorist attacks of October 7. For example, from October 7:

• “Always remember that Gaza has done what all Arab armies have not done… !! It dug tunnels with its own hands. It built its weapons with its own hands…!! She sacrificed her sons, her women, her youth, her elderly, her homes and her mosques for the dignity of this land…!!” — MSF nurse (see Appendix 1).
• “oh my God, we love you” — MSF doctor (see Appendix 1)….

MSF employees hailed the Hamas atrocities of October 7 — the doctor who tweeted “O my god, we love you!” was one of many MSF personnel celebrating those who raped, tortured, mutilated, and murdered helpless Israelis that day. Those MSF praisers of Hamas did not even try to hide their identities; they knew that they would suffer no consequences from the MSF for their expression of enthusiasm for Hamas’ atrocities. The MSF in Gaza and the West Bank has been a willing collaborator with Hamas and other terror groups for many years.

In the meantime, the evidence of Hamas operating in Gaza’s medical facilities is overwhelming. A video from October 7 shows hostages being taken by force into Al Shifa Hospital, stolen IDF vehicles in the hospital courtyard, armed men in the hospital, bodies of hostages found in the hospital, numerous weapon caches and exchanges of fire. Finally, several tunnel entrances are located in an area very close to the hospital….

Hamas has been able to hide weapons, command centers, and fighters both inside many of Gaza’s hospitals and in the tunnels underneath. The largest hospital hideout is at Al-Shifa, where a CCTV camera recorded hostages being dragged into the hospital by their Hamas captors. Other videos showed IDF vehicles that Hamas had stolen, parked in the hospital courtyard, armed men inside the hospital, bodies of hostages who had been killed by their Hamas captors and then dumped outside the hospital, and stockpiles of weapons hidden by Hamas in the hospital. And tunnel entrances were discovered very near to the hospital. Similar discoveries of Hamas weapons and fighters in the Al-Rantisi Pediatric Hospital and the Al-Quds Hospital revealed the close ties between the Palestinian medical personnel in those hospitals — including members of MSF — and Hamas operatives.

MSF was perfectly informed about what was going on at the Al-Shifa Hospital, as shown by its series of tweets about the staff and the buildings. The doctors and nurses who belonged to MSF saw the armed men patrolling the corridors at Al-Shifa, knew about the tunnel entrance in the hospital and the tunnel underneath the hospital, and understood that Hamas was holding both medical personnel and patients as human shields against IDF attacks. Of course, this misuse of a hospital violates humanitarian law, but no spokesman for MSF has said a word confirming Hamas’ presence in Al-Shifa and in other Gaza hospitals. It’s collaborating fully with Hamas in its attempted cover-up.

On October 7, MSF issued a statement in Arabic that denounced air strikes by Israel on the Indonesian Hospital, but said not a word about the Hamas attacks. Not a word, not a syllable, has any MSF spokesman uttered about the atrocities carried out by Hamas on October 7. Why hasn’t the UN General Assembly, why hasn’t UN’s Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, called the MSF to account, asking why it has so far refused to denounce, or even to take public note of, the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust?

Ghassan Abou Chaar, vice-president of MSF France, reposted this:

“I think it important for people to be educated on Gaza before spewing anything from talking points you have heard.” 

In other words, Abou Chaar cautions, don’t rush to denounce Hamas. First, learn about the “context” of the attack, the “75 years of occupation,” the “constant humiliation of Palestinians in Gaza,” “the cruel blockade of Gaza by Israel,”the impoverishment of the people of Gaza.” Once all that has been thoroughly assimilated, those who might have rushed to condemn Hamas will see things in a new light: Hamas should now be understood as the brave avenger, responding to the cruel treatment meted out by the Zionists on the Gazans they hold captive in that “open-air prison.” Hamas is now seen, as it claims to be, “the resistance” to Zionist repression.

Louis Baudoin Laarman, Field Communications Manager in Jerusalem, tweeted: “Rockets still shooting from #Gaza right now. No Israeli response for now”, then reposted in English from MSF international talking about an Israeli strike following “the escalation,” and then in an Arabic version via “MSF Arabic”, he failed to mention “the escalation.”…

MSF’s Laarman reposted from MSF a tweet that describes the Hamas atrocities merely as “the escalation.” And in the Arabic version, he didn’t even mention “the escalation” (by Hamas), but began his version of events with Israel’s attack, as if Israel, and not Hamas, had started the Gaza war.

On X (Twitter), on October 17 at 9:56pm (a few hours after the rocket launched by Palestinian Islamic Jihad hit Al Ahli Hospital), MSF France quoted Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah, identified as an MSF doctor in Gaza:

“We were operating in the hospital when there was a loud explosion and the ceiling of the operating theater fell. It was a massacre.”

On his Facebook page, where he identifies himself as an MSF doctor, Abu Sittah wrote the next day:

“We now know that the number of people killed exceeds 500, and this number is going to rise (…) it was the most heralded crime in history, it’s a massacre by appointment.”

Abu Sittah is often quoted by MSF and has been picked up by the world’s press, including the BBC. It should be remembered that the hospital was not destroyed, that the PIJ rocket hit the hospital’s parking lot and that, according to European sources, the death toll was between 10 and 50….

Why does Abu Sittah, a member of MSF, continue to be quoted respectfully, long after his three lies were exposed? First, he claimed that there was an explosion on the roof of the hospital, which he attributed to the IDF, claiming that 500 people were killed and calling it, with typical Arab exaggeration, a “massacre” and “the most heralded crime in history.” In fact, as Abu Sittah well knew, the explosion was in the parking lot of the hospital, not on the hospital itself, which suffered no damage. Second, the explosion was the result not of an Israeli airstrike, but of a rocket launched by Palestinian Islamic Jihad toward Israel. The rocket misfired and hit the hospital parking lot. Third, according to European, American, and Israeli intelligence, not “500 people,” but between “10 and 50” people were killed in the explosion. Yet Abu Sittah continues to be quoted as an unbiased MSF authority, still spouting his discredited version of the Al-Ahli incident, without the media taking the time to contradict him on every detail.

MSF can’t bring itself to criticize Hamas, not even once, for its unbelievable crimes against Israeli men, women, and children, but has no trouble denouncing Israel for its justified war of self-defense.

MSF has lost all credibility in its reports, not everywhere it operates, but certainly in the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Its trajectory downward, from being a respected international organization, and winner of a Nobel Prize for Peace, to becoming a shill for Hamas, reminds one of Human Rights Watch, that under the leadership of its founder, Robert Bernstein, was a celebrated defender of human rights against real tyrannies and tyrants. But under his successor, the far-left and obsessively anti-Israel Kenneth Roth, HRW focused much of its of its attention on the supposed crimes of the Jewish state.

MSF clearly needs new leadership, and it needs to cleanse its membership rolls of those who have openly praised Hamas despite, or perhaps because of, the atrocities that terror group committed on October 7. As an organization, MSF at long last must publicly condemn Hamas for those atrocities, and make sure that anyone now in the MSF, including the doctors and nurses now working in Gaza, who is unwilling to endorse that condemnation, should be asked to leave. That’s part of the necessary epuration of MSF, an organization that needs to recover from the delirium of antisemitism.