Khaberni - Isabelle Defourny, president of "Doctors Without Borders," warned on Saturday that the organization might end its operations in the Gaza Strip by next March if Israel does not rescind its decision to ban its operations and activities of 36 other organizations.
Israel confirmed on Thursday that it "will implement the ban" on the activities of 37 major international humanitarian organizations in the Gaza Strip because they did not provide the authorities with lists of their Palestinian employees as per new legislation.
"Doctors Without Borders" described this decision as an "outrageous overreach," yet Israel has asserted that it aims to "prevent the infiltration of terrorist elements into humanitarian institutions."
Defourny said, "To work in Palestine, in the occupied Palestinian territories, the names of employees must be registered... and this registration expired on December 31, 2025."
She added, "Since July 2025, we have launched a re-registration process for the names, and we have not received any response so far... We still have 60 days to operate without needing to re-register, and we will consequently have to end our activities in March," if Israel persists in its decision.
"Doctors Without Borders" includes about forty international employees in the Gaza Strip and collaborates with 800 Palestinian employees in eight hospitals.
Defourny said, "We still have international employees who have recently managed to enter Gaza in the past few days."
She added, "We are the second-largest water distributor in the Gaza Strip; in the year 2025, we treated just over 100,000 people with burns or various injuries. We also rank second in terms of the number of births we conduct."
Defourny, based on a report by the Israeli Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the body of the Israeli Ministry of Defense responsible for civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, considered that the Israeli decision stems from the fact that NGOs "bear witness to the violence committed by the Israeli army" in Gaza.
She added, "International journalists have never been allowed to enter Gaza, while the Israeli army targets local journalists and kills them."
She noted that "more than 500 humanitarian workers have been killed, including 15 members of Doctors Without Borders," in Israeli strikes since October 2023.
