Brussels – 16 June 2025 – 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 Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in a press conference in Brussels today. 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.
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.
“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.
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.
In an Open letter to the heads of states of the European Union and the presidents of the EU institutions, Dr Christos Christou, MSF International President, and Chris Lockyear, Secretary General, MSF International, appeals to take decisive action to alleviate the suffering in Gaza.
-
Related:
- Ceasefire in Gaza
- Gaza
- Gaza War
- MSF in Gaza
- War in Gaza
