Israel’s New Registration Rules for INGOs a ‘Disaster’ Risk for Palestinians – MSF

December 22, 2025 News
UNICEF said that nearly 9,300 children under the age of five in the Gaza Strip suffered acute malnutrition in October. (Photo: via UNICEF)

“With Gaza’s health system already destroyed, independent and experienced humanitarian organisations losing access to respond would be a disaster for Palestinians,” MSF said.

Israel’s new registration requirements for international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) risk leaving hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza without lifesaving healthcare in 2026, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warned on Monday.

The new requirements threaten to withdraw registration from INGOs beginning 1 January, MSF said in a statement. It stressed that this non-registration would prevent organisations including MSF from providing essential services to people in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

“With Gaza’s health system already destroyed, independent and experienced humanitarian organisations losing access to respond would be a disaster for Palestinians,” the statement said.

The organization called on the Israeli authorities “to ensure that INGOs can maintain and continue their impartial and independent response in Gaza,” stressing that the “already restricted humanitarian response cannot be further dismantled.”

“In the last year, MSF teams have treated hundreds of thousands of patients and delivered hundreds of millions of litres of water,” Pascale Coissard, MSF emergency coordinator for Gaza, said.

Shattered Health System

Coissared added that MSF teams are trying to expand activities and support Gaza’s shattered health system.

“In 2025 alone, we carried out almost 800,000 outpatient consultations and handled more than 100 000 trauma cases, and if we obtain registration, we plan to continue strengthening our activities in 2026,” the official stated.

MSF “provides a vast amount of life-saving healthcare, yet even this is not enough to meet the overwhelming needs of people in Gaza,” the statement said.

In 2025 alone, MSF teams handled over 100,000 trauma cases; managing the care for over 400 beds; performed 22,700 surgical operations on nearly 10,000 patients; carried out almost 800,000 outpatient consultations; and assisted in more than 10,000 deliveries.

Call to Israel

The organization said it also provided more than 40,000 individual mental health sessions and group sessions for over 60,000 people;  distributed more than 700 million litres of water and produced nearly 100 million litres of clean water.

For 2026, MSF has committed an estimated 100-120 million euros for its humanitarian response in Gaza.

“Many of the services provided by MSF are largely unavailable elsewhere in Gaza due to the destruction of the health system,” the organization said. “If MSF loses its access to Gaza in 2026, due to the Israeli authorities, a large portion of people in Gaza will lose access to critical medical care, water, and lifesaving support.”

The organization said it “continues to seek constructive engagement with Israeli authorities to continue its activities.”

Staggering Death Toll

Working in the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 1989, MSF is currently supporting six public hospitals and runs two field hospitals in Gaza. It recently opened six new medical points providing wound care and other general health care services.

Israel Violates Gaza Ceasefire as WHO Warns of Mass Child Malnutrition

Despite the US-brokered ceasefire that took effect on October 10, Israel continues to violate the agreement by failing to allow in the agreed quantities of medical aid trucks, deepening what the Health Ministry described as a critical and ongoing health emergency.

Israel has also killed 405 Palestinians and injured over 1,000 more since then, raising to  70,937 the total number of those killed since the genocidal assault was launched on Gaza in October 2023, according to the Health Ministry figures.

(PC, Anadolu)

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