STANBUL, Aug 21 — Doctors Without Borders (MSF) on Thursday condemned the Israeli military’s decision to close cases involving the killings of its staff and their relatives in Gaza without opening a criminal investigation.
Anadolu Ajansi reported the MSF said the decision came nearly two years after it first sought investigations into the attacks and after it petitioned Israel’s High Court over the Military Advocate General’s failure to respond.
“This is not justice,” the group said, arguing that a military system investigating itself had failed to address violations that may amount to war crimes in Gaza.
MSF said the names and locations of its personnel had been shared with Israeli forces and that its vehicles were clearly identified.
“We have always maintained that all elements point to the Israeli army’s clear responsibility for the deadly attacks,” it said.
One case involved a November 2023 attack on an MSF convoy that killed two relatives of staff members. One of those killed, Alaa Al Shawa, was also a volunteer supporting MSF medical teams at Al-Shifa Hospital.
Another involved an attack on an MSF shelter in Khan Younis in February 2024 that killed the wife and daughter-in-law of an MSF staff member and injured six others, five of them women or children.
MSF said 15 of its staff members have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 2023, among some 1,700 health care workers killed during the same period.
The organisation said the closure of the cases showed there was “no prospect of accountability within the Israeli legal system” for the killings of its staff.
It also linked the decision to Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
MSF said no internal military review could substitute for “genuine, independent and impartial accountability” and called for the cases involving its personnel to be reviewed by an impartial investigative body.
“There is no military objective that justifies the wholesale sacrifice of civilians,” the group said.
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, 10 Palestinians were killed and 25 injured over the past 24 hours, raising the death toll from Israel’s genocide in the enclave since October 2023 to 73,417, with 174,360 others wounded.
The ministry said Israeli violations of a truce have killed 1,283 Palestinians and injured 4,248 others.
