Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is horrified by the killing of two of our doctors, Dr. Mahmoud Abu Nujaila and Dr. Ahmad Al Sahar, and another doctor, Dr. Ziad Al-Tatari, following a strike on Al-Awda Hospital, which is one of the last remaining functional hospitals in northern Gaza. This tragedy follows the killing of MSF laboratory technician Mohammed Al Ahel, who was killed at home with members of his family in an airstrike on Al Shati refugee camp on November 6.
We condemn this strike in the strongest terms and yet again call for the respect and protection of medical facilities, staff, and patients. Dr. Abu Nujaila and Dr. Al Sahar were in the hospital when it was hit on its third and fourth floors. Other medical staff, including MSF staff, were also severely injured. MSF has regularly shared information about Al-Awda, including making it clear to warring parties that it is a functioning hospital with medical staff. Just yesterday, GPS coordinates were shared with Israeli authorities.
Another serious violation of international humanitarian law
More than 200 patients are currently still inside Al-Awda and are unable to receive the level of care they need. These patients must be urgently and safely evacuated to other hospitals that are still functioning in Gaza, although all hospitals in the Strip have been working beyond their capacities since October due to ongoing supply shortages, attacks, and extremely high caseloads.
MSF staff have been subject to multiple dangerous incidents in the last few days alone, including an attack on an MSF convoy trying to evacuate 137 staff and their families near Al-Shifa Hospital and a separate attack on an outpatient burn clinic in Gaza City. Our colleagues who are assisting hundreds of patients in Gaza are facing extreme difficulties in providing the little medical care they can.
Seeing doctors killed next to hospital beds is beyond tragic, and this must stop now.
Attacks on medical facilities are a serious violation of International Humanitarian Law, yet these attacks have become systematic in the past weeks. We reiterate our call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza—now more than ever—as well as for lifting the siege of Gaza and for the protection of medical facilities and medical staff.
MSF has been working at Al-Awda Hospital since 2018, providing reconstructive and trauma surgeries for adults and children. We pay tribute to the courage of our colleagues, and we will always remember them. Our thoughts are with their families and all colleagues mourning their death.
“We dread nightfall”: Voices from Gaza
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