Medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), also known as 'Doctors Without Borders', announced on Friday that it will not provide the staff lists requested by Israel to maintain access to Gaza and the West Bank. The organization cited an inability to secure assurances about the safety of its teams as the reason for its decision.
This announcement comes just one week after MSF had agreed to share staff lists with Israeli authorities.
"After many months of unsuccessful engagement with Israeli authorities and without securing guarantees for the safety of our staff or the independent management of our operations, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has decided not to share a list of its Palestinian and international staff with Israeli authorities under the current circumstances," the organization stated.
MSF, which provides support and personnel to hospitals in Gaza, is one of 37 international organizations that Israel has ordered to cease operations in the Palestinian territories unless they comply with new regulations, including the submission of employee details.
The aid group expressed concerns that sharing staff information could jeopardize their safety, referencing the number of aid worker deaths in Gaza, an estimated 1700, which included 15 MSF staff members.
MSF also claimed that Israeli authorities have failed to provide the "concrete assurances" that staff information would only be used for administrative purposes.
MSF alleged ties to terrorism
Israel has previously claimed that MSF maintained active ties to designated terrorist organizations and “practiced advancing an extreme anti-Israeli narrative under the guise of humanitarian activity.”
According to ministry documents viewed exclusively by The Jerusalem Post, an MSF employee in Gaza, Fadi al-Wadiya, was revealed to be a senior operative of Islamic Jihad and an expert in rocket systems, as evidenced in the MSF Belgium report and corroborated by IDF publications. Another staff member, Mahmoud Abu Nejeila, has publicly expressed support for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
The documents also said that, “despite repeated and explicit demands,” the organization did not provide full transparency regarding the identities, roles, and activities of those individuals.
Mathilda Heller and Reuters contributed to this report.