Médecins Sans Frontières/ Doctors Without Borders (MSF)
strongly condemns the decision by the Israeli Military
Advocate General (MAG) to close, without opening a criminal
investigation, the cases MSF itself submitted for review:
the multiple attacks on an MSF convoy in Gaza City in
November 2023 that killed two, and the February 2024 strike
on an MSF shelter in Khan Younis that killed two and injured
six.
Unfortunately, this does not come as a surprise.
These responses come nearly two years after MSF’s request
was submitted, which was followed by a submission to the
Israeli High Court of Justice challenging the MAG’s
failure to provide any answer to our formal
requests.
This is not justice. Two years of silence,
followed by closures that raise more questions than they
answer, is unacceptable. However, it is the predictable
output of a military apparatus investigating itself: a
system which has demonstrated itself unwilling to respond to
the extent of violations that may amount to war crimes
emerging from Gaza.
MSF staff and their family members
are dead. Their names are known. Their locations were
shared. Their vehicles were identified. We have always
maintained that all elements point to a clear responsibility
of the Israeli army for the deadly attacks. And yet, those
responsible for their deaths have declined to pursue any
criminal investigation.
With this decision, the MAG
has made clear that there is no prospect of accountability
within the Israeli legal system for the killing of our
staff, just as there has been no accountability for Israel’s
ongoing genocide against Palestinians.
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A total of 15
MSF staff members have been killed in Gaza by Israeli forces
since October 2023. This is just a fraction of the 1,700
healthcare workers who have been killed in that time.
Israeli forces continue to kill civilians with impunity,
something these decisions by the MAG, make clear.
The
decision to ‘close’ these incidents must be understood in
their proper context: in Gaza, tens of thousands of
Palestinians have been killed. Healthcare facilities have
been destroyed. Humanitarian convoys have been struck.
Journalists, medical personnel, UN personnel, and aid
workers have been killed in numbers unprecedented in any
recent conflict.
MSF reaffirms what it has stated
since the beginning of this violence: there is no military
objective that justifies the wholesale sacrifice of
civilians. And there is no internal military review that can
substitute for genuine, independent, and impartial
accountability.
We demand that the cases involving our
colleagues be reviewed by an impartial investigative
body.
To our colleagues we have lost, and to the
countless civilians and humanitarian workers who have
perished in Gaza: we will not let your deaths be filed away
as procedural inevitabilities. You deserved protection. You
deserve justice.
Note:
MSF is
an international, medical, humanitarian organisation that
delivers medical care to people in need, regardless of their
origin, religion, or political affiliation. MSF Australia
was established in 1995 and is one of 24 international MSF
sections committed to delivering medical humanitarian
assistance to people in crisis. Every year more than 120
Australians and New Zealanders go on assignment with
Médecins Sans Frontières working as: doctors, midwives,
psychologists, laboratory technicians, human
resource/finance coordinators, pharmacists, mental health
specialists and logisticians. MSF delivers medical care
based on need alone and operates independently of
government, religion or economic influence and irrespective
of race, religion or
gender.
