Médecins Sans Frontieres (MSF)

Over 75 tons of essential medical supplies have been safely transported to Lebanon via sea, following a joint operation between Greenpeace and Medecins Sans Frontieres, in which three voyages were made by the Rainbow Warrior between Larnaca in Cyprus and Beirut. The humanitarian cargos consisted of essential relief equipment, including medical equipment, dialysis material, drugs, hygiene kits and fuel, which was transported on the three shuttle voyages, starting on 2 August and ending today at 0900 when the Rainbow Warrior arrived back in Larnaca.

Médecins Sans Frontières considers the reallocation of funds for the PA to the UN and other international relief agencies so that they can offset the human and social consequences of sanctions unacceptable. “Although it is up to governments to decide whether to suspend aid, humanitarian actors cannot be ‘social palliative’ of retaliatory measures that impact on the entire population,” the medical relief agency said. “Humanitarian aid actors do not have the competence, the means or the responsibility to act as a substitute for the Palestinian Authority, to ensure provision of social services, to run ministries or public systems or to pay civil servants. It is not the role of humanitarian aid agencies to ensure that the basic needs of the civilian populations living in the occupied Territories are covered.”

Since the beginning of this operation, Médecins Sans Frontières has received numerous calls asking for help to secure food, water and medicines for people blocked in Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia and Jabalia. In these zones, which remain isolated from the rest of Gaza, all movements have been impossible since September, 28. For the past eight days, MSF teams, who have both the capacity to treat and to provide food supplies for the families they are supporting, are unable to do so, for lack of authorization by the Israeli Defense Forces. Once again, MSF asks for access to its patients in the Gaza Strip.

The long series of Israeli military incursions into the town of Beit Hanoun in the Gaza strip continues and intensifies. The latest gives rise to violent offensive against civilians and their property. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), present in Gaza since the beginning of the Al Aqsa Intifada, deplores the wanton destruction of people’s lives and is alarmed at the medical, psychological and material consequences on local families affected by this disaster.

Today, M�decins Sans Frontieres (MSF) released the ‘Palestinian Chronicles’, a report with first-hand testimonies about the daily life of Palestinian civilians trapped by conflict in Hebron and the Gaza Strip, and whose suffering is generally unknown.