LONDON: Few Palestinians expect Israel to heed the UN’s call for maximum restraint, but even the threat of a rising death toll is unlikely to halt further protests in Gaza.
The political horizons for Gaza’s almost 2 million inhabitants are severely constrained by an Israeli-Egyptian blockade, a divided leadership, and a lack of concrete action either regionally or internationally toward peace.
Washington has yet to present any detailed peace plan and many Palestinians believe all they can do is try to make sure they are not forgotten amid the carnage caused by other regional conflicts, including Syria and Yemen.
Yehia Abu Daqqa, a 20-year-old student, said he had come to demonstrate and honor those killed in the past. “Yes, there is fear,” he told AP. “We are here to tell the occupation that we are not weak.”
Meanwhile, Hazem Qassem, the Hamas spokesman, emphasized that demonstrations would be peaceful.
“Maintaining the peaceful nature of the protests will strike all fragile Zionist propaganda,” he said.
The “March of Return” protests on the Gaza-Israeli border, organized by a network of Palestinian activists, are intended to draw attention to refugees displaced in 1948 by the creation of Israel. Refugees make up more than 90 percent of Gaza’s population and the protests will culminate on May 15, the 70th anniversary of Israel’s birth and a day the Palestinians call the “nakba” or catastrophe.
This year the anniversary will prove especially stark for Palestinians because the administration of President Donald Trump is scheduled to open a US embassy in Jerusalem. Israel annexed East Jerusalem — which the Palestinians want as their capital in a future state — after the 1967 war in a move that is not recognized under international law.
Many Gazans believe they have little to lose. Unemployment is around 50 percent, health care is meager and the blockade has turned the territory into an open-air prison.
A decade of Hamas rule has failed to improve the lives of ordinary Gazans. The divide between Hamas and the Fatah party led by Mahmoud Abbas has worsened, while the Palestinian president has found himself marginalized by Washington in spite of his previous overtures.
The humanitarian situation is set to deteriorate even further as Trump withholds aid payments to the Palestinians, accusing them of unwillingness to discuss peace with Israel. The US is by far the largest donor to UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency).
Many Gazans barely remember a brief window of hope in 2005 when Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from the territory. For a short time, there was talk of economic regeneration backed by the World Bank and other organizations.
All that faded, particularly after Hamas won parliamentary elections in 2006 and the international community backed Israel by refusing any contact with the Islamist organization.
Israel and Hamas militants have fought three wars since 2008. With Washington’s apparent abandonment of a two-state solution that would be acceptable to most Palestinians, another war cannot be ruled out.
Desperate Gazans believe they have nothing to lose
Desperate Gazans believe they have nothing to lose
Halt to MSF work will be ‘catastrophic’ for people of Gaza: MSF chief
- MSF slammed the move, which takes effect on March 1, as a “pretext” to obstruct aid
- “Ceasing MSF activities is going to be catastrophic for the people of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank,” he said
GENEVA: Israel’s ban on Doctors Without Borders’ humanitarian operation in Gaza spells deeper catastrophe for the Palestinian territory’s people, the head of the medical charity told AFP on Monday.
Israel announced on Sunday that it was terminating all the activities in Gaza and the West Bank by the organization, known by its French acronym MSF, after it failed to provide a list of its Palestinian staff.
MSF slammed the move, which takes effect on March 1, as a “pretext” to obstruct aid.
“This is a decision that was made by the Israeli government to restrict humanitarian assistance into Gaza and the West Bank at the most critical time for Palestinians,” MSF secretary-general Christopher Lockyear warned in an interview with AFP at the charity’s Geneva headquarters.
“We are at a moment where Palestinian people need more humanitarian assistance, not less,” he said. “Ceasing MSF activities is going to be catastrophic for the people of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.”
MSF has been a key provider of medical and humanitarian aid in Gaza, particularly since war broke out after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
The charity says it currently provides at least 20 percent of hospital beds in the territory and operates around 20 health centers.
In 2025 alone, it carried out more than 800,000 medical consultations, treated more than 100,000 trauma cases and assisted more than 10,000 infant deliveries.
It also provided more than 700 million liters of water, Lockyear pointed out.
‘Impossible choice’
Israel announced in December that it planned to prevent 37 aid organizations, including MSF, from working in Gaza for failing to submit detailed information about their Palestinian employees. The move drew widespread condemnation from NGOs and the United Nations.
It had alleged that two MSF employees had links with Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which the medical charity vehemently denies.
“If Israel has any evidence of such things, then they should share that evidence,” Lockyear said, insisting that “there’s been no proof given to us.”
He decried “an orchestrated campaign to delegitimize us,” calling on other countries to defend efforts to bring desperately-needed humanitarian aid into Gaza.
“They should be speaking to Israel, pressuring Israel to ensure that there is a reverse of any banning of humanitarian organizations.”
Lockyear said MSF, which counts around 1,100 staff inside Gaza, had been trying to engage with Israeli authorities for nearly a year over the requested lists.
But it had been left with “an impossible choice,” he said.
“We’ve been forced to choose between the safety and security of our staff and being able to reach patients.”
‘Can only get worse’
The organization said it decided not to hand over staff names “because Israeli authorities failed to provide the concrete assurances required to guarantee our staff’s safety, protect their personal data, and uphold the independence of our medical operation.”
Lockyear insisted that was a “very rational” decision, pointing out that 15 MSF staff had been killed in Gaza during the war, out of more than 500 humanitarian workers and more than 1,700 medical workers killed in the Strip.
Lockyear highlighted that without independent humanitarian organizations in Gaza, an already “catastrophic” situation “can only get worse.”
“We need to increase massively the humanitarian assistance that’s going into Gaza,” he said, “not restrict it, not block it.”
