Doctors Without Borders, popularly known as MSF, claims to be impartial. When it comes to Israel, this is simply ‘untrue’ critics say
Former leaders and a major Canadian donor of Doctors Without Borders are distancing themselves from the venerable aid organization after its employees celebrated the October 7 atrocities, gave aid to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health, ran a one-sided social media feed and internally circulated articles accusing Israel of creating Palestinian “death worlds.”
“To be frank, I was very, very, surprised because it’s not the MSF I knew,” Alain Destexhe, the secretary general of the organization, popularly known by its French acronym MSF, from 1991 to 1995, told National Post.
Destexhe said MSF’s messaging throughout the Israel-Hamas war is markedly different than past conflicts.
“We used to make statements, you know, in Bosnia and Rwanda, but not taking sides like this,” he said. “We always took into account the political context, but not to take sides from one group to another. In the Gaza War, I really got the feeling that MSF was totally biased.”
In the Gaza War, I really got the feeling that MSF was totally biased
The organization dismissed these criticisms.
“Our decision to speak out about these grave realities as an impartial and independent humanitarian organization has sometimes prompted questions from the public about our neutrality in the conflict itself,” Claudia Blume, a spokesperson for MSF Canada, told the Post by email. “We unequivocally disagree with the notion that MSF’s communications on Gaza have been ‘politicized’ or represent an ‘abandonment of our neutrality.’”
Destexhe wasn’t the only MSF loyalist to have an October 7 wake-up call. One major Canadian Jewish donor told the Post he urged his mother to support the group despite pushback from family members cautioning him against MSF’s reputation of being institutionally biased against Israel.
“I think most people know that they have a history of not being the friendliest towards Israel,” the philanthropist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told the Post.
He said he reassured his mother, following conversations with MSF Canada’s leadership, that the organization was duty-bound to be apolitical and strictly adhere to its mission of providing aid and observation. However, the inconsistencies between their initial promise and their treatment of Israel reached a boiling point in November 2023 when the patron confronted MSF Canada’s executives.
“I will be honest,” the donor told then-executive director Joe Belliveau in an email shared with the Post, “the more I review MSF public communications (Instagram, specifically), the evidence is overwhelming that the MSF stance has a pronounced bias. There is still not one single mention of the 200+ civilian hostages; not one mention of Hamas’ indiscriminate rocket fire into civilian centers, both of which are war crimes and violations of the Geneva conventions,” he wrote in late November.
“Before we made our donation, I was extremely skeptical that this exact situation might arise. So, my late mother and I came into your offices and met with your representatives for peace of mind. They sat us down and reaffirmed your mission statement. I specifically brought up my concerns of neutrality in a future Israel-Gaza conflict, and they stood firm by their mission statement,” he wrote.
“These powerful words had eased my skepticism and ultimately these words convinced me to move ahead with the generous gift of $2,000,000 in memory of my mother.”
Belliveau, whose term ended in December 2023, initially expressed an openness to engaging “on this topic,” but the conversation petered out without any constructive resolution, the donor said.
“We do not equate neutrality with silence. We speak out as a moral imperative, and we do so from the perspective of humanity, not one side in a conflict or the other,” the MSF Canada leader wrote to the donor.
“MSF’s focus on direct witnessing as a driver of our communications limits our ability to share a medical humanitarian perspective on what is happening in Israel, because we are not operational there. Gaza is where we have colleagues, and that is where we care for patients. What is currently happening in Gaza is also abhorrent and we cannot remain silent about that, even in the knowledge that our statements may appear politically biased.”
The donor was unconvinced by Belliveau’s answer and said the MSF leader failed to address his concerns about biased messaging and silence on Hamas atrocities.
National Post was unable to reach Beliveau for comment.
“If (my mother) were alive today, she would have been very upset. Her brothers and her family members are really upset about everything that’s happening,” the philanthropist told the Post. In retrospect, he now regrets his decision to trust MSF Canada.
Hamas receives a single passing reference in the piece, while Israel is cited nearly eighty times to bolster the claim that the Jewish State’s military response is unjustifiable. It accuses Israel of creating “death worlds” for Palestinians. The ideas expressed in the article, and the silence of MSF’s leadership, disturbed Sonberg, a self-described political moderate.
“That article made me uncomfortable enough to leave the organization,” Sonberg told the Post. “If MSF’s position is do we provide support or not, then whether Israel has a right to exist is irrelevant to the argument.”
He’d originally been “honoured” to join MSF back in June 2022 and envisioned happily serving out his six-year term. He said the first months of his stint, coinciding with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, were heartening.
“I joined after Ukraine happened, but there wasn’t a discussion about Russia-Ukraine, who’s good, who’s bad,” he told the Post. “One of the things that I took comfort in within MSF was that they don’t go in and assess who’s right/who’s wrong, and therefore who should we help, or which view we should espouse. It’s, there is a humanitarian need here and we are addressing the humanitarian need.”
If MSF’s position is do we provide support or not, then whether Israel has a right to exist is irrelevant to the argument
“I agree that there’s a humanitarian need in Gaza. There’s no doubt about that,” Sonberg continued. “Am I supportive of MSF being in Gaza and playing a humanitarian role? Absolutely. My concern is when their view in Gaza goes beyond it.”
Sonberg said the organization’s response in the first months of the Israel-Hamas war undermined his confidence that MSF was living up to its charter principles of neutrality and impartiality.
Sonberg eventually left in March 2024, sending a detailed email for “those who may be interested to learn why I resigned,” that called the group’s “claims to be independent, neutral and impartial” simply “untrue.” His letter echoed the philanthropist’s concerns that MSF Canada failed to condemn October 7 or correct false statements on social media about the conflict.
“When I asked about MSF’s silence about the October 7 Hamas attacks, I was told that MSF only comments on what it witnesses; as MSF did not witness the attacks or their effects, they could not comment on them,” the email obtained by the Post, reads.
MSF Canada defended its conduct in the wake of criticism from two Jewish supporters – Sonberg and the donor.
“We do not stand for discrimination of any kind, consistent with our MSF charter to provide assistance based on need, regardless of ethnicity, gender, religion or political affiliation,” Blume wrote in an email. “It is always regrettable when, and if, any donor, supporter, or team member chooses to depart MSF because of a disagreement with our public communications or advocacy positions.
Sonberg dismissed the statement as “boilerplate and predictable” and said that the group’s answer to the Post’s request for comment was “more detailed than the response to my resignation.”
Richard Rossin, who served as secretary general of MSF in the 1970s and later co-founded Médecins du Monde (Doctors of the World), said that he perceived a tone shift within the organization several decades ago.
“I think it was perceptible around the beginning of the ‘80s,” Rossin told the Post by phone from his home in southern Israel. Antisemitism within MSF “began under the cover of anti-Zionism.”
He feels these same issues continue to plague MSF’s mission in Gaza today. “It’s a failure,” he said. “It’s a mistake if you see people only on one side.”
Since the start of the war, Hamas has been largely painted out of the picture, Destexhe, a former secretary general, said. The group is rarely mentioned in MSF messaging.
MSF’s social media accounts also show how the organization’s response to the Israel-Hamas war has differed from its standard of remaining neutral.
After a blast at a Ukrainian medical facility in April 2024, MSF did not name Russia and simply announced a suspension of “medical activities, except for ambulance referrals and emergency care.”
By comparison, after the al-Ahli Hospital blast on Oct. 17, 2023, MSF rushed to blame Israel.
“We are horrified by the recent Israeli bombing of Ahli Arab Hospital in #Gaza City, which was treating patients and hosting displaced Gazans. Hundreds of people have reportedly been killed. This is a massacre. It is absolutely unacceptable,” MSF International wrote on X on the day of the explosion.
“We are horrified by the brutal mass killing of civilians perpetrated by Hamas, and by the massive attacks on #Gaza now being pursued by Israel,” MSF International wrote on Oct. 12. The remainder of the thread denounced Israel for “indiscriminate violence and the collective punishment of Gaza.” Two days later, the group called on Israel to “show humanity.”
The tone set by MSF International trickled down to its chapters across the globe.
By Oct. 17, MSF Canada wrote, “unconditional humanity needs to be restored in Gaza,” calling Israel’s response “unimaginable” and “inhumane.” The statement made no reference to Hamas or their invasion, which ignited hostilities.
Before October 7, several nations facing humanitarian issues were highlighted in MSF Canada’s social feeds – including Malawi, Venezuela, Sudan, Haiti and Burkina Faso – but its coverage following the Hamas attack veered near-exclusively to covering Israel. At one point, in early November 2023, MSF Canada’s Instagram account was blanketed with six red-bolded calls for an immediate ceasefire, something not previously done as part of its advocacy for Sudan or Ukraine.
MSF International’s Instagram page was comparatively muted in February 2022 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, calling the situation “extremely worrying.” Within a month, the organization’s focus had quickly shifted to Libyan refugees, midwives in South Sudan, and social workers in the Palestinian Territories.
Steinberg has grown accustomed to this discrepancy. “MSF is both a humanitarian and advocacy organization, and on Israel and the Palestinians, the partisan dimension is dominant and destructive,” Steinberg told the Post by email. He recalled the group showing similar favouritism during an earlier flare-up in 2009.
“Then, as now, their responses echoed the Palestinian narrative of victimhood and displayed a willful blindness to the systematic abuse of hospitals in Gaza for terror. They erased Israeli victims and the way the general population in Gaza is used as a massive human shield to protect the Hamas terror tunnels below,” Steinberg wrote.
MSF’s relationship with the Hamas-run Ministry of Health was another major reason why Destexhe lost faith. Their failure to admit “health facilities (are) being used by Hamas and by soldiers,” he told the Post, left him “really sad, and then I became angry.”
The terror group built extensive tunnel networks beneath several medical facilities for military use, such as the intricate tunnel system exposed beneath Rantisi Hospital, which the Israeli Defense Forces said was a “Hamas command and control centre” that was full of suicide bomb vests, grenades and AK-47 assault rifles.
https://twitter.com/noatishby/status/1726321666945380653
“MSF works with the Ministry of Health in Gaza, which is part of the Hamas civilian administration. We coordinate our work through them as we do with medical authorities in any place where we operate. To manage the safety of our teams in the Gaza Strip, we maintain contact with the Ministry of Interior in Gaza, just as we maintain contact with the Israeli authorities,” Blume said in an email.
Some MSF employees have also been linked to Palestinian terror groups. These concerns were highlighted in June when Fadi al-Wadiya, an MSF employee, was killed by an Israeli drone while biking to a clinic where he worked as a physiotherapist. MSF Canada first told the Post that “Fadi was executed by an Israeli strike and no proof of any wrongdoing has been shared with MSF.”
After Israel released images alleging Wadiya moonlit as a Palestinian Islamic Jihad missile expert, MSF told the Post they took the allegations “very seriously” and said they “had no prior knowledge of Fadi’s alleged involvement.”
https://x.com/HenMazzig/status/1806047584135356536
“MSF would never knowingly employ people engaging in military activity. Any employee who engages in military activity would pose a danger to our staff and our patients,” spokesperson Catheryne Gagnon wrote, calling for an “independent investigation” into the matter.
“Always remember that Gaza has done what all Arab armies have not done…!! It dug tunnels with its own hands. It built its weapons with its own hands…!! She sacrificed her sons, her women, her youth, her elderly, her homes and her mosques for the dignity of this land…!!” Asma’a Um Seraj, an MSF nurse from Gaza City, wrote on Oct. 7.
Similar celebrations poured in across MSF’s network in Gaza.
Some staff posted images of Hamas’s leaders, applauded earlier terror attacks, and even shared antisemitic cartoons.
Destexhe said the support for Hamas among MSF’s Palestinian employees revealed a community that had been “gangrened by a deadly, anti-Semitic terrorist ideology.” His report accused MSF of violating “its own charter.”
“The proximity between some MSF staff and Hamas raises questions about possible links between MSF in Gaza and extremist groups,” the report concluded.
Gagnon said the report is “false, irresponsible and dangerous.”
“We consider this document as a gross fabrication aiming at discrediting the credibility of the public communications and humanitarian work of MSF.”
Gagnon did not respond to follow-up requests to clarify which part of the report was untrue.
Rwanda was on Destexhe’s mind as he spoke to the Post from the nation’s capital of Kigali on a recent trip. The parallels between Rwanda then and Israel today were striking to Destexhe.
Hundreds of thousands of Rwandan refugees – Hutu and Tutsi – had fled across the border to neighbouring Zaire (then, the Democratic Republic of Congo) to escape the violence. He’d been at the helm of MSF when they decided to suspend their operations because supplies were routinely stolen by Hutu genocidaires.
“Our team arrived in a hospital,” Destexhe remembered, “and all the Tutsi patients had been killed. There were only the Hutu patients left. So, what do you do? You cannot continue working in those conditions. You become accomplices.”
Destexhe steered the group toward the difficult decision of pulling out rather than becoming a quiet partner in the unfolding atrocities.
“It was nonsense. Staying would have been being manipulated by Hutu Power and being accomplices to genocide. The same result in Gaza,” Destexhe said. “They play into the hands of Hamas.”
Rossin, a former secretary general who predated Destexhe, remains pessimistic that MSF can take a more balanced approach to Israel and Gaza moving forward.
“It cannot be fixed,” he said, exasperated. “How can you fix antisemitism, which is not an opinion but a mental disease?”