News & Stories

Ethnic Cleansing in Masafer Yatta, West Bank

MSF teams visit Khallet Athaba to assess community needs. In Masafer Yatta, mobile clinics provide medical and psychological care to families living under continuous attacks

Ethnic Cleansing in Masafer Yatta, West Bank

Frederieke van Dongen, MSF Humanitarian Affairs Manager

In Khallet Athaba’, a village in Masafer Yatta, in the Hebron governorate, Palestinian families are enduring daily harassment, intimidation, and violent attacks from Israeli settlers, often under the protection of the Israeli forces. The destruction has left the majority of residents without adequate shelter, water, or electricity.

According to testimonies from the community, since February 2025, Israeli forces conducted four mass demolitions, reducing more than 85 per cent of homes and shelters to rubble, forcing families to move into caves. Last week, Israeli forces returned and demolished seven shelters, nine tents, and six caves, along with over 14 water tanks and the village’s entire electricity system. Families are left with almost no options for safe shelter. Only the school and three houses are left standing.

The community, home to around 100 people, continues to resist displacement despite the scale of destruction. Families who have lost their houses have moved into caves, only to face settlers entering and attacking them inside. One resident described the constant expansion of settlements nearby, with caravans appearing closer to the village each day.

MSF teams who visited Khallet Athaba’ reported that the community urgently needs medical care, mental health support, hygiene items, food, and water and sanitation services. But above all, families stressed their need for protection, dignity, and access to essential services.

MSF delivers primary healthcare and mental health and psychosocial support through mobile clinics serving five villages in and around Masafer Yatta.

One resident told our teams that a month ago, nine settlers forced their way into her home, where she was alone with her four children. The settlers began beating the children with metal bars and attempted to strike her three-month-old baby on the head. Both the mother and the baby were then pepper-sprayed, and the settlers continued beating her while she was trying to protect her baby, fracturing a bone in her hand. One of her children, aged 13, suffered a broken arm, while another, aged 3, sustained a head injury and a bone fracture. The baby was later taken to hospital and remains under observation due to continued vomiting.

What is happening in Masafer Yatta is part of a broader policy of ethnic cleansing, aimed at forcibly transferring Palestinians from the area. Despite repeated demolitions and attacks, no one has left the village. Residents insist they will not become refugees in their own land.

Healing Colors: Stories of Hope and Courage

Sham, 12 years old This is a sad monster with a gunman's weapon pointed at him. And around him are hearts we embrace with love, because even a monster deserves to be loved and not feared. I am only scared of the weapon.

Healing Colors: Stories of Hope and Courage

This exhibition shares the voices and feelings of children we meet through our mental health and psychosocial support activities in the Baalbek-Hermel region, where MSF runs fixed and mobile clinics.

Each drawing tells a personal story — of home, memories, hope, and resilience. These children have faced displacement and change, yet through their art they express what they miss, what they dream of, and what gives them strength.

Here you will see trees that once gave shade and fruit, homes filled with love, skies with birds and butterflies, and eyes that hold sadness but also courage — and new dreams growing like leaves on a tree. Their drawings remind us that mental health is about feelings, identity, and healing — even when life has been difficult.

This exhibition is more than images; it is an invitation to pause, listen, and connect with the inner worlds of these young artists.

Thank you for joining us in honoring their strength, creativity, and the importance of supporting mental health for every child and community.

Enter: WORLD MENTAL HEALTH DAY | artspaces | kunstmatrix

Ceasefire in Gaza: Humanitarian aid must flow immediately

The announcement of the first phase of the ceasefire in Gaza brings a welcome moment of relief for exhausted, starved, and grieving Palestinians and a great relief to the families of all hostages — but it comes after more than two years and over 67,000 lost lives.

While we welcome the ceasefire, it does not mark the end of this horrendous suffering — people in Gaza are left to survive amid the ruins of what was once their home, facing immense medical, psychological, and material needs.

The feeling of our colleagues and the people around us is one of hope, a lot of hope, wishing that this nightmare will finally stop and they will be able to be at peace, be able to recover from their trauma, both physical and mental. But there's also a lot of uncertainty of what is going to happen, what are the next steps.

Jacob Granger, MSF emergency coordinator in Gaza

The ceasefire must be respected and sustained because it’s the only way that will allow care to be provided at the scale people desperately need — something that was impossible under siege and bombardment. In the long term, we hope to see this ceasefire leading to efforts to rebuild the Strip, including restoring the shattered healthcare system.

The most basic necessities are still urgently needed in Gaza: medical equipment, medicines, food, water, fuel, and adequate shelter for two million people who will face the approaching winter without a roof over their heads.

This ceasefire must be accompanied by an immediate massive and sustained scale-up of aid into and across the Strip, including the north. We urge the Israeli authorities to allow a sufficient and unimpeded flow of humanitarian assistance and to authorize medical evacuations for patients in need of urgent specialist care. At the same time, the UN-led humanitarian coordination mechanism must be reinstated to guarantee safe and impartial access to aid for those in need, wherever they are in the Gaza Strip.

Men’s Well-Being on World Mental Health Day

World Mental Health Day - Syrian Survivor of Torture

Men’s Well-Being on World Mental Health Day

He is a tired man who’s expected to be strong, always – to endure and stand firm. He has learned that fatigue, tears, and fear are not for him, that he must not waver no matter how heavy the burden. Outwardly he looks steady; inside, he carries hidden wounds. In a moment of silence, on the brink of collapse, he swallows his scream, because the same question chases him every time: “What will people say?”

The Middle East and North Africa region faces some of the world’s longest and most complex crises. From Palestine to Sudan, Syria, Yemen, and Lebanon, people have endured wars, occupation, economic collapse, and forced displacement. Entire populations have lived under chronic pressure and uncertainty.

Munir Mohamed Abdel Fattah Al-Kilani, one of our patients from Gaza now living in Amman, said: “After the war we lived through, every Palestinian need mental support – someone who will listen and help raise awareness.”

Men’s needs and realities in conflict and crisis settings are often overlooked. Many men in our region face intense stressors such as direct violence, displacement, unemployment, detention, torture, and the loss of their roles as protectors and providers.

Society expects a man as he grows up to be strong and brave, not to cry, express himself, or ask for help.

Rayan Badawi Najjar, MSF’s mental health supervisor in Tripoli, Lebanon project

Samer*, a young man living in northern Lebanon, experienced many of these stressors firsthand: “My childhood was tragic. I had an accident and lost my hand. I felt discriminated against at school and dropped out, but I didn’t give up. I worked and started a family. With the financial crisis I lost everything, and anxiety began to eat away at me. When my daughter fell ill and I was overwhelmed with fear, I broke down.”

Difficult experiences like Samer’s can lead to mental health disorders such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance use, and aggression. In MSF’s Tripoli project, Badawi Najjar observed a troubling pattern: psychosis rates were far higher among men (9.5 percent) than women (1.5 percent). Even more alarming, 18 percent of men reported thoughts of ending their lives or wishing for death, compared to 13 percent of women.

Yet even these figures haven’t broken down the barriers that keep men from seeking care.

We found that one of the main reasons men avoid mental health services is the stigma surrounding mental disorders, along with low awareness of mental health. In society’s eyes, asking for help is seen as a sign of weakness or a flaw.

Saddam Mohammed, an MSF mental health supervisor in Darfur, Sudan

Hope in Healing: Personal Journeys Through Therapy

Samer, however, decided he needed care: “By the second session, I started to feel a change and began looking forward to them.” Other men are breaking the pattern as well. Emad Murad, 45, from Miryata in northern Lebanon, chose to confront the misconception that had shackled him for years: “There is no shame in mental health services, and they don’t undermine my dignity. It’s treatment no less important than care for the heart or diabetes.”

With mental health at the heart of MSF’s work, Emad turned to one of its clinics for support. MSF provides mental health care to those most in need: from people affected by conflict and violence to refugees and communities facing crushing economic crises. From Lebanon to Gaza, Sudan, and Yemen, MSF offers individual and group psychological support, works to break stigma, and encourages people to seek help without fear or shame.

“There’s no shame in asking for help, and no shame in therapy,” says Mohammed Abakar Ahmed, a man in his thirties from Sudan. “After I started treatment, I felt a big change. I used to neglect myself and hate work; now I feel energized and I enjoy my job,” he added.

The impact of mental health care often extends beyond the individual, reaching families and communities. Emad encouraged his family “because my experience was positive, I brought my children and my brother to meet MSF’s mental health team.” Samer urges “all men to seek mental health services, because the shame isn’t in getting treatment – it’s in reaching the point of collapse.”

*Name changed to protect privacy.

MSF forced to suspend activities amid intensified Israeli offensive in Gaza City

Logistics staff dismantle and evacuate tents often used for triage and overflow, are no longer available to the influx of wounded from continued Israeli airstrikes.

MSF forced to suspend activities amid intensified Israeli offensive in Gaza City

The intense Israeli forces’ offensive in Gaza City, Palestine, is putting our staff and patients at risk.
The unacceptable level of risk has led us to reluctantly decide to suspend our lifesaving activities in Gaza City.
Israeli authorities must immediately guarantee unhindered access and security for humanitarian organisations operating in Gaza City.

Gaza – The relentless Israeli offensive in Gaza City, Palestine, has forced Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) to suspend vital medical activities in the area due to the rapidly deteriorating security situation. The situation includes continued airstrikes and advancing tanks less than one kilometre from our healthcare facilities. The escalating attacks from Israeli forces have created an unacceptable level of risk for our staff, forcing us to suspend lifesaving medical activities.

“We have been left with no choice but to stop our activities, as our clinics are encircled by Israeli forces,” says Jacob Granger, MSF Emergency Coordinator in Gaza. “This is the last thing we wanted, as the needs in Gaza City are enormous, with the most vulnerable people – infants in neo-natal care, those with severe injuries and life-threatening illnesses – unable to move and in grave danger.”

While large numbers of people have fled south due to evacuation orders, there are still hundreds of thousands of pople in Gaza City, who are unable to leave and have no other option but to stay. Those who are able to leave face an impossible choice: either remain in Gaza City under intense military operations and the deterioration of law and order, or abandon what’s left of their houses, their belongings, and their memories, to move to areas where humanitarian conditions are rapidly collapsing.

We have been left with no choice but to stop our activities, as our clinics are encircled by Israeli forces... This is the last thing we wanted.

Jacob Granger, MSF Emergency Coordinator in Gaza

At the same time, partially functional hospitals across the Strip are overwhelmed due to severe shortages of staff, supplies, and fuel. Patients also face enormous obstacles reaching care, often arriving late and in critical condition.

Last week alone, and despite the mounting offensive, our clinics in Gaza City carried out over 3,640 consultations and treated 1,655 people with malnutrition. We have also treated patients with severe trauma injuries, burns, as well as pregnant women and others requiring ongoing medical care who are unable to leave the city. This shows the scale of medical needs. Although we have been forced to suspend our activities in Gaza City, we aim to continue supporting key services in Ministry of Health facilities, including Al-Helou and Al-Shifa hospitals, while they continue to function.

Access to and the provision of safe drinking water, food, shelter and care is increasingly restricted. People in Gaza City have been repeatedly and relentlessly bombed. They are exhausted and are being deliberately deprived of the essentials needed to survive.

We call for an immediate halt to the violence and concrete measures at the necessary scale to protect civilians. Israeli authorities must immediately guarantee unhindered access and security for humanitarian organisations operating in Gaza City, and acceptable conditions for the safe and sustained delivery of medical care and humanitarian aid, conditions that are clearly not in place today.

In southern Gaza, MSF teams continue to provide critical care. In Khan Younis, MSF supports Nasser hospital and runs three healthcare centres. In the Middle Area, MSF supports Al-Aqsa hospital’s emergency department and wound care clinic, and operates two field hospitals in Deir Al-Balah.

Sudan War: A Story of Sexual Violence in Darfur

Illustration of a patient testimonies on the sexual violence that MSF she faced during her long path from El Fashir, Sudan

Sudan War: A Story of Sexual Violence in Darfur

A Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) midwife in Tawila, North Darfur, Sudan, recalls the harrowing story of a girl who was raped repeatedly by her abuser, moments after he ordered his driver to run over her mother. The two had been trying to flee to Tawila from the nearby Zamzam camp, just outside El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, which the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and its allies had been besieging and attacking for over a year. On 13 April, the RSF attacked Zamzam, triggering the displacement of around 380,000 people to Tawila. In just five weeks, more than 300 victims and survivors of sexual violence sought care at MSF-supported services in Tawila.

Days that will never be forgotten

April 2025 is seared into Anna’s* memory. Anna, a midwife with 18 years of MSF experience, was urgently called to the emergency room, where victims of sexual violence were arriving in large numbers following the assault on Zamzam camp.

The room was filled with women shouting, most of them seeking care after being raped. And in the middle of it all, a girl sat in silence, barely daring to meet my eyes.

Anna, a midwife with 18 years of MSF experience

“I asked, ‘What is happening? What is this smell?’ A woman answered, ‘There is a dead body here’”, Anna continues. “It was at that moment that the girl finally lifted her gaze. I asked her, ‘Are you okay?’ And she replied, ‘Will you come with me so we can talk?’”

Ethnic targeting and atrocities faced by civilians

The girl explained to Anna that her abuser first asked if she belonged to the Zaghawa tribe.

“I denied it; the commander kept insisting,” says the girl. “My mother tried to defend me. He ordered his driver to run her over, killing her instantly, right before my eyes. After that, he took me to a place and raped me again and again.”

“It was only when he went after other people that his driver brought me back to my dead mother and the others escaping with us,” the girl continues recounting to Anna. “We placed my mother’s body on a donkey and continued our journey toward Tawila.”

Since the outbreak of war in April 2023, non-Arab ethnic groups, including the Masalit, Zaghawa, and Fur, many of whom survived the violence in Darfur two decades ago, have been particularly targeted. The RSF, which is besieging El Fasher and controls much of the Darfur region, dominates most exit routes from the city, attacking those trying to flee. This includes communities who face rape, torture, and even killings along the way. This situation is detailed in the MSF report Besieged, Attacked, Starved: Mass Atrocities in El Fasher and Zamzam, Sudan, published in early July 2025.

Scaling up care for victims and survivors of sexual violence amid crisis

By the end of June, MSF had reinforced referral pathways through four community-based centres in displacement camps, allowing better engagement with communities. At Tawila hospital, only nine victims/survivors received care between January and March 2025. That number rose sharply to 121 between April and June, and reached 339 in July and August. With strengthened referral systems

explaining part of this increase, the numbers indicate improved access to care, but also how widespread is sexual violence. Many victims and survivors reported brutal assaults by multiple armed perpetrators while attempting to flee. Assaults did not stop with the attack on Zamzam, and every week sees new episodes of violence in and around El Fasher, such as increased bombings and attacks at Abu Shouk displacement camp, and new victims and survivors arriving in Tawila.

Anna has observed a shift in the patterns of sexual violence.

“In April and May, most survivors were women and girls arriving within 72 hours of the attacks,” says Anna. “By August, they came forward later with support from our community centres.”

“Sexual violence against men remains largely unseen,” she continues. “Stigma and fear keep many silent, but there are hints during conversations and consultations when people seek care for other issues, that this is ongoing.”

Urgent needs: Protection, care, and accountability

Despite immense barriers to accessing medical care, over 600 victims and survivors of sexual violence have sought care at MSF-supported health facilities between April and August 2025 in the conflict-ravaged region of North Darfur.

The brutality in Darfur cannot be ignored. It must be documented and urgent action taken. Humanitarian donors, organisations, and all stakeholders must urgently work to restore and scale up services provided to victims and survivors, and strengthen protection and accountability measures. Civilians must be protected, and perpetrators of sexual violence held accountable.

Survivors urgently need comprehensive, free, and timely support, including medical care, psychological and social assistance,” says Anna. “Darfur’s survivors face relentless atrocities. The world cannot look away.

Anna, a midwife with 18 years of MSF experience

* The name has been changed for security reasons

Lebanon one year on: Growing needs amid uncertainty

MSF donations in the war-ravaged Tibnine girls’ orphanage

Lebanon one year on: Growing needs amid uncertainty

I came back to repair the damages to my house, But without safety and the ability to afford basic things like medicines, how can anyone really start over?

Abdel Karim - His words almost drowned out by the hum of an Israeli drone overhead.

One year has passed since Israel escalated its war in Lebanon, yet the humanitarian crisis is far from over. Despite the ceasefire agreement in November 2024, Israeli attacks are almost a daily reality, hindering people’s ability to recover and restricting their access to care. Israeli forces are still occupying several points along the southern border preventing people’s return and leaving more than 82,000 displaced.

Lifting the rubble

In southern Lebanon, war has devastated infrastructure, including healthcare facilities. At the height of the escalation, eight hospitals, mostly in the southern areas, were evacuated, while 21, or around 13 per cent of the country’s total, were damaged, drastically reduced their services or were forced to close. Another 133 primary healthcare facilities also shut their doors, and Nabatieh alone lost 40 per cent of its hospital capacity. Today, many damaged facilities remain closed, and many need rehabilitation.

After the escalation, MSF set up new activities in the hardest-hit governorates—Nabatieh, the South, and Baalbek-Hermel, while maintaining its presence and provision of services in Beirut, Bekaa and the North. In the southern governorates, where available services remain financially out of reach for many returnees, MSF set up mobile clinics to ensure communities’ access to vital medical and mental health services. MSF is also rehabilitating and supporting three primary healthcare centres to restore provision of services in areas of return.

Heavy burden

Wars leave an immense toll on the communities that are directly impacted,

Tharwat Saraeb, a psychologist with MSF’s mobile clinic in the Nabatieh governorate

Here, not a day goes by without people re-experiencing the devastation. Drone sounds, continued occupation of lands and non-stop airstrikes all deepen the suffering of people.”

MSF teams on the ground continue to witness the human cost of the escalation and the lasting impacts of a war that has not fully abated. Many patients live in fear and uncertainty, many unable to begin recovery. Mental health needs are also profound, as children and adults alike experience stress, anxiety and constant fear.

My daughter faints at the sound of any strike, even if it’s far away, she has a child of her own, and we all tremble with fear – it affects us all deeply.

Samira another patient of MSF’s mobile clinic.

A shared plight

The war devastated Lebanese families, refugees and migrants alike. Lebanon is home to more than a million Syrian refugees, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, and many migrants who already live in precarious conditions. These communities were excluded from many relief efforts during the escalation, despite facing the same urgent needs for food, shelter and healthcare. One year on, refugees’ and migrants’ needs are neglected. Their access to secondary healthcare through humanitarian organisations is at risk.

By the end of 2025, the UN Refugee Agency and the International Organization for Migration will cease covering secondary healthcare, while UNRWA and UNICEF face unprecedented funding cuts. The severe global funding cuts for humanitarian programs leave enormous needs unmet, create new vulnerabilities and deepen existing ones.

For people like Abdel Karim and Samira, rebuilding their lives remains an uphill battle. MSF teams remain committed to providing services wherever they’re needed, ensuring that communities are not left without access to vital healthcare. Yet true recovery will only be possible when people can live free from fear and can access the medical, mental health and essential services they so urgently need to start over.

MSF Secretary General: Governments Complicit in Genocide

Chris Lockyear MSF secratery general at UN briefing

MSF Secretary General: Governments Complicit in Genocide

Doctors Can’t Stop Genocide, World Leaders Can
Christopher Lockyear, Secretary General, Médecins Sans Frontières

More than one million people in Gaza are facing renewed terror, after receiving an emergency order to evacuate Gaza City, ahead of a major ground offensive by the Israeli military. For many, escape is impossible – the elderly, critically unwell, heavily pregnant or wounded. Those left behind have been handed a death sentence.

People who attempt to flee will do so under intensifying bombardments. Those who survive the journey will reach overcrowded areas in central and southern Gaza where they will find neither safety nor the basics they need to exist. A population pushed to the brink by almost two years of extreme brutality faces catastrophe.

What is happening in Gaza is not just a humanitarian catastrophe, it is the systematic destruction of a people. MSF is clear: Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and doing so with absolute impunity.

The human toll is staggering. According to the latest Ministry of Health (MoH) figures, more than 64,000 people have been killed, including 20,000 children. The true death toll is likely higher, with many more buried under the rubble of hospitals, schools, and homes.

There is no safe place in Gaza. Entire families have been wiped out sheltering in their homes. Health workers have been killed whilst tending to the sick. Journalists have been targeted for bearing witness. The Israeli military has attacked everything and everyone in Gaza.

High intensity weapons designed for open battlefields – some sold to Israel by US and European governments – are being used in densely populated urban areas, where people are sheltering in tents. We are treating devastating injuries as a result.

The Israeli authorities have systematically targeted Gaza’s healthcare system – bombing hospitals, raiding medical facilities, and endangering the lives of staff and patients – acts that may amount to war crimes. The few hospitals that remain are overwhelmed and undersupplied. Patients suffer and die needlessly.

Twelve of our colleagues have been killed and MSF orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Mohammed Obeid, remains detained by Israel since October 2024. In total, more than 1,500 health workers have been killed. Each one is a devastating loss – for their families and for Gaza’s besieged health system.

The impact of the genocidal war extends beyond direct attacks. Israeli authorities have deliberately choked Gaza, imposing a total siege, with severe restrictions on fuel, water, food, and medical supplies.

A policy of collective punishment, including starvation by design, has achieved its brutal objective – famine has been declared. A recent survey at our clinics in Gaza showed 25% of pregnant or breastfeeding women were malnourished, which can increase the risk of stillbirth, miscarriage and premature birth.

The limited food assistance available has been cynically weaponised. An Israeli-run, US-funded operation is responsible for killing 1,400 people and injuring 4,000 more. We have treated children shot in the chest while reaching for food, and people crushed or suffocated in stampedes. This level of brutality is unconscionable.

Deliberate shortages of water are fuelling disease. Last month, MSF treated 4,000 people for watery diarrhoea – potentially deadly for malnourished children. MSF could increase the supply of clean drinking water but are regularly blocked from doing so.

Meanwhile, settler and state violence in the occupied West Bank is accelerating. Land theft, forced displacement, and attacks on communities are intensifying, as part of policies designed to change the demographic makeup of the West Bank.

Governments around the world – through political, military, or material support to Israel, or through silence – are complicit in the genocide. They have a moral and legal obligation to respond. This means real political pressure, not empty words, using every available political, diplomatic, and economic measure to stop these atrocities.

States must urgently secure a ceasefire, lift the siege and ensure that Israeli authorities allow immediate and unhindered delivery of large-scale, independent humanitarian aid. Medical facilities and health workers must be protected. The evacuation orders, and mass, forced displacement of people must stop.

Borders must be opened to allow the evacuation of people who want to leave, and patients in urgent need of specialist care. Governments must actively facilitate these lifesaving pathways and a right of return when conditions are truly safe to do so.

Countries that have expressed outrage and solidarity for Palestinians can and must do more to increase the political pressure on others to act. This includes ensuring all countries halt arms transfers used to kill and injure people and destroy civilian infrastructure in Gaza.

Each day, our 1,399 colleagues working in Gaza face the devastating reality that they cannot stop a genocide. But world leaders can, if they choose to act. As the two-year anniversary of this relentless and extreme violence approaches, the political choices required to bring it to an end are long overdue.

Gaza City Offensive: A Looming Humanitarian Catastrophe

A crowded pickup truck loaded with people and household belongings driving through a damaged street in Gaza

Gaza City Offensive: A Looming Humanitarian Catastrophe

Humanitarian Catastrophe in Gaza

Gaza City is facing a humanitarian catastrophe as Israel’s latest military assault escalates, pushing people to the brink and threatening the survival of what remains of the health system. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams warn that it will be simply impossible to force one million people – including hundreds of critically ill patients and newborn babies – out of Gaza City and into overcrowded and under-resourced areas in the centre and south of the Strip. This would represent a death sentence for one million Palestinians.

Displacement and Living Conditions Worsen

Relentless bombing by the Israeli forces and the advance of the ground offensive are killing hundreds of Palestinians and driving them from their homes and shelters, sometimes multiple times, following a pattern of complete destruction previously witnessed by MSF teams in Rafah. “Some of our colleagues have been displaced more than eleven times since 2023,” says Jacob Granger, Emergency coordinator for MSF in Gaza. Makeshift shelters offer little safety as bombing continues, often targeting areas to which survivors had already fled. An estimated one million displaced persons now occupy just 15 per cent of Gaza’s territory — conditions worsened by the destruction of almost 90 per cent of water and sanitation systems. “MSF continues to distribute water in the city but, with no water reserves left, if the Israeli forces make drinkable water production and distribution impossible, people will die in a matter of days” says Granger. Outbreaks of disease such as acute diarrhoea are spreading in overcrowded, unsanitary living conditions.

Health system on the brink

Israel’s offensive is deliberately wrecking Gaza’s healthcare capacity. More than half of the hospitals have been rendered inoperative; those remaining function on the brink of collapse under targeted attacks. Bed occupancy rates reached 300 per cent at Al Ahli hospital, 240 per cent at Shifa hospital and 210 per cent at Rantissi hospital. The ongoing escalation in Gaza City is threatening to close 11 of 18 partially functioning hospitals in the Gaza Strip as well as other healthcare facilities, while the health authorities report zero stock remaining for over half of essential drugs.

Medical staff have endured repeated raids, health workers themselves have been killed, detained or threatened, including an MSF doctor still in detention with no formal charges against him. In the medical facilities we support in Gaza city, we are seeing an increased number of wounded with increasingly serious injuries. Patients who need intensive care are at risk of dying if forced to evacuate due to hospital closures. People with disabilities, people who are sick or wounded will not be able to evacuate.

Starvation as a policy

The siege has triggered a famine: restrictions on food, clean water, medicine, and aid deliveries are causing acute malnutrition rates to skyrocket. Civilians desperate for aid at distribution points face deadly force — for months, MSF clinics responded to mass casualties resulting from Israeli fire at the food distribution sites managed by the GHF.

Ground operations must stop immediately

Israeli forces aim to push Palestinians out of Gaza City through genocide, ethnic cleansing and creating impossible life conditions. Nowhere is safe, and the vastly insufficient quantities of aid are delivered through routes that are extremely dangerous for civilians. The destruction of critical infrastructure is ongoing and deliberate.

MSF calls for the immediate end to use of evacuation orders as a means of forcible displacement, a lasting ceasefire, and the entry of humanitarian aid at scale. We ask for the protection of medical facilities and the coordinated movements of humanitarian actors. The systematic destruction of an entire city and population must end. We call on Israel’s allies to stop arms transfers to Israel immediately and ramp up the pressure to halt the offensive. Without urgent, radical intervention, Gaza faces total annihilation.

Inside Sudan’s War: How MSF Kept Al-Nao Hospital Functioning

Al Nao hospital is supported by MSF in Omdurman, Khartoum state

Inside Sudan’s War: How MSF Kept Al-Nao Hospital Functioning

Al-Nao Hospital at the Heart of Sudan’s Conflict

Since the war in Sudan began in April 2023 and reached Khartoum state, Al-Nao hospital, located in Omdurman city, has become a humanitarian anchor for thousands of people. The hospital ran with minimal service at the beginning of the war, staffed by local health workers and volunteers. In July 2023, a team of dedicated doctors, nurses, logisticians, and volunteers got it running at capacity again. Since then, they have worked under extreme pressure, risking their lives daily to keep providing care.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the Fight to Deliver Supplies

“Before the hospital could treat anyone, we had to get the supplies in,” says a logistician for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), who was working at Al-Nao hospital in the beginning of the war. “Every shipment was a gamble. The warehouse was in Khartoum, around 30 kilometres away from Al-Nao hospital, and each route had to be scouted in advance for safety.”

“One volunteer from Al-Nao would drive towards us, scouting for clashes, while avoiding the shelling and the airstrikes,” says the logistician. “He guided us through side streets, sometimes under fire, just to make sure the medicines reached the hospital. Without him, and without those shipments, we wouldn’t have stood a chance.”

Al-Nao Hospital at the Heart of a Warzone

For two years, until the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) regained control of Khartoum in May 2025, intense fighting raged in Khartoum and Omdurman cities. This violence was and remains part of the wider civil war between the SAF and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which has devastated much of Sudan’s capital region. Fighting has ended in Khartoum now, but when the war began the capital and its sister cities across the Nile River, Omdurman and Bahri, were the sites of some of the fiercest fighting that Sudan has endured during this war.

MSF’s Forced Evacuation and the Collapse of Health Infrastructure

MSF was forced to evacuate our teams out of Khartoum state at the beginning of the war, and only a few of our local MSF colleagues remained to continue providing and coordinating care while we planned for our full return once it was possible.

As frontlines closed in and neighbourhoods emptied, healthcare infrastructure crumbled. Hospitals were looted, shelled, or simply abandoned. Amid this devastation, teams of Sudanese healthcare staff and volunteers ensured Al-Nao hospital was able to provide care through its emergency room.

Al-Nao became a critical node in a collapsing health system. Its proximity to the frontlines made it both a target and a necessity. The Sudanese MSF staff who remained worked hand in hand with Ministry of Health employees and volunteers between May and July 2023 to restart the hospital’s full services.

From Ruins to Recovery: Rebuilding Al-Nao Hospital

“When we first arrived at the hospital, it was full of rubbish,” says Siddig Omer, an MSF logistician from Sudan. “We had to clean it all up before we could even think about treating patients.”

The team got to work, fixing up parts of the hospital that had been neglected. They swept and scrubbed floors, repaired broken windows, and restored power.

The Turning Point: Reopening Al-Nao 24/7

The re-opening of this hospital marked a critical shift for people who had been affected by the war, as most health facilities in Sudan were either shut or barely functioning due to insecurity, looting, and shortages of supply. Health workers were barely making ends meet while putting their lives at risk. Hospitals were under immense pressure to remain functional in a war-torn economy, where essentials like fuel and basic medical supplies were both limited and overpriced.

A Day of Crisis: Al-Nao Treats Hundreds of Patients

“27 July 2023, the team working in the emergency room treated more than 150 wounded patients,” says Dr Khalid Abd Rahman Abdelsalam, who was MSF’s project coordinator in Omdurman at the time. “Al-Nao hospital didn’t even blink. Like a beehive, every department, from the emergency room to the blood bank, moved in perfect harmony.”

“The emergency team was composed and highly professional, managing to absorb the overwhelming influx of patients, as if they had rehearsed for this very moment,” he says.

It was a day like many others for staff at Al-Nao. The shelling and bombing were persistent; so much so that people learned to recognise different projectiles based on their sound. The frontline in Omdurman, located in the Khartoum metropolitan area, where heavy fighting became a daily reality, was a mere two kilometres from the doorsteps of Al-Nao hospital. Outside, the city roared with chaos, but inside, the hospital moved with purpose.

MSF Support for Al-Nao Hospital: From Emergency to Partnership

From 2023 to 2025, MSF’s support to Al-Nao hospital evolved from emergency rehabilitation to a comprehensive partnership with the gradual return of a full MSF project team. Today, we provide clinical training, essential medical supplies, fuel, water and sanitation services, and food for patients. We have also trained Ministry of Health staff on mass casualty response, and MSF provided financial incentives so they could continue to carry out critical, life-saving work in their community.

As the circumstances surrounding the hospital changed, so did the hospital’s role. Al-Nao’s service area expanded beyond Omdurman as frontlines shifted, to include parts of Bahri, and other districts of Khartoum state. With other hospitals damaged, destroyed or not yet functioning, Al-Nao became the only functioning emergency facility in Omdurman. Since July 2023, more than 48,000 trauma patients have been treated in the emergency room of Al-Nao hospital.

A Hospital on the Frontline of Sudan’s War

On 1 February 2025, an explosion struck a market in Omdurman. Within minutes, Al-Nao’s emergency room was overwhelmed.

“I can see the lives of men, women and children torn apart,” said Christopher Lockyear, MSF’s Secretary General, who happened to be at the hospital on that day. “There are dozens and dozens of people with devastating injuries. The morgue is full of dead bodies. What I see in front of me is a scene of utter carnage.”

The hospital teams treated 158 injured patients that day. Just three days later, another shell struck within 100 metres of the hospital, killing six people, including a local volunteer who had been providing meals through an initiative at the hospital. Al-Nao has been hit three times since the war began; in August 2023, October 2023 and June 2024. Yet, the staff kept going, no matter what.

Local Heroes Keep Al-Nao Hospital Functioning

The strength of Al-Nao hospital lies in the unwavering dedication of its Sudanese staff. From both the Ministry of Health and MSF, it was Sudanese doctors, logisticians, nurses, and technicians who kept the hospital alive through bombardments, blackouts, and unbearable pressure.

Local initiatives were equally vital for the survival of the hospital. To this day, volunteers were everywhere and doing everything. Some had a pharmacy inside the hospital, which offered free-of-charge medicines to people who could not afford them, while others were helping in the emergency room during mass casualty events. Volunteers were also preparing food for patients and caretakers through community kitchens.

The unshaken sense of duty demonstrated by each staff member and volunteer is what kept Al-Nao hospital open when so many others had to close. Their courage made all the difference.

“In October 2024, a truck carrying over 30 cholera patients crossed the frontline and arrived at Al-Nao at midnight,” says Mohammed Nadim, a member of the MSF project team. “Only about 20 survived the trip. The cholera treatment centre wasn’t ready, and we were low on supplies. MSF assembled a team past curfew and got what we needed from the warehouse in the hospital. That instant reaction saved lives.”

Holding the Line: MSF and Al-Nao Against All Odds

As frontlines kept shifting, waves of displaced people arrived in Omdurman, many of whom were returning to their neighbourhoods they had initially fled. This led to more people seeking care at Al-Nao, so it was essential to bring in more supplies.

MSF logistics teams worked tirelessly to ensure the hospital was stocked and operational.

“We had to transport the supplies in buses instead of trucks to avoid becoming a target,” says Omar Mhmed Elnour, MSF’s supply chain manager. “And the buses had to take the longest routes to avoid active battle zones. We even managed to send four fridges full of insulin in buses to address the shortage in the city to help save lives of diabetic patients.”

Despite these challenges, Al-Nao maintained operations. MSF support allowed the Ministry of Health to redirect its limited resources to other facilities, strengthening the healthcare system in Omdurman.

“Al Nao kept healthcare alive in western Khartoum despite enormous difficulties and harsh conditions,” says Dr Jamal Mohamed, the General Director of Al-Nao hospital.

The hospital’s ability to manage mass casualty events without compromising other healthcare services became a model of crisis resilience.

A Model Worth Replicating

MSF’s approach towards Al-Nao hospital is based on strategic support that was designed to reinforce the efforts of Sudanese health workers and the Ministry of Health. Rather than leading operations, MSF focuses on supporting operations: providing essential supplies, financial incentives, technical guidance through local and international staff.

This model allowed the hospital to remain operational and responsive, even under extreme pressure and insecurity. This partnership has demonstrated that with the right kind of support, the local health system can continue to function, even in the middle of an active conflict.

“Standing by in solidarity with frontline health workers and complementing their courageous efforts as they save lives was the least we could do, even when our teams couldn’t reach the area,” says Tuna Turkmen, MSF head of mission in Sudan. “Al-Nao sets a powerful example on how trust and solidarity can sustain healthcare, even in the darkest hours.”

One Step Forward, but the Journey is Not Over

Al-Nao hospital has become an example of what is possible when dedicated humanitarians, whether from MSF, the Ministry of Health, or the local community, collaborate.

The story of Al-Nao is not over. The fighting in Khartoum may have ended, but the war continues, and people’s healthcare needs are growing. The hospital is resilient no doubt, but it cannot respond alone. Continuous support is needed to help Al-Nao and other healthcare facilities in Khartoum state and beyond.

Donors, policy makers, and humanitarian organisations can see Al-Nao as an example of how it is possible to rebuild the capacity of the health system in Sudan. The dedication of the Sudanese healthcare workers, volunteers, and people must be matched.

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