On the afternoon of February 1st the BBC News website published a report by George Wright headlined “Israel to ban MSF from working in Gaza over refusal to provide staff list”.
The opening paragraphs of the report tell BBC audiences that:
“Israel says it will ban Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) from working in Gaza after the medical charity refused to hand over a list of its staff in the territory.
The Israeli government had ordered 37 organisations to submit documents about their local and international workers in Gaza, claiming some in MSF had links to armed groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The charity has vehemently denied this.”
While Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) may indeed have “vehemently denied” having staff with links to terrorist organisations, Wright should have been able to tell his readers that MSF has employed, among others, a physiotherapist who was also a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a doctor linked to the PFLP and a driver who was also a Hamas sniper.
Wright, however, chose not to inform his readers of that publicly available information and instead continued:
“MSF announced on Friday that it would not share a list of its Palestinian and international staff with Israeli authorities as it had not secured “assurances to ensure the safety of our staff”.
In response, Israel said it was “moving to terminate the activities” of MSF in Gaza.”
Notably, MSF’s January 30th announcement came the day after Hamas’ ministry of health had issued a statement calling on NGOs not to share local employee information with the Israeli authorities but BBC audiences were not informed of that fact either. Wright later tells readers that:
“MSF said in a statement on Friday that it had informed Israeli authorities that, as an “exceptional measure”, it would share a list of names of its Palestinian and international staff, “subject to clear parameters, with our staff safety at its core”.
“However, despite repeated efforts, it became evident in recent days that we were unable to build engagement with Israeli authorities on the concrete assurances required,” it said.
“These included that any staff information would be used only for its stated administrative purpose and would not put colleagues at risk.””
Indeed, MSF had stated on January 24th that it would comply with the requirement to submit staff lists but in contrast to its claim of having been “unable to build engagement with Israeli authorities”, COGAT noted that the NGO “has not officially approached Israeli authorities or submitted the list of local employees, despite its announcement they will do so”.
Wright goes on:
“On Sunday, it [MSF] said the move was a “pretext to obstruct humanitarian assistance” to Gaza.
“Israeli authorities are forcing humanitarian organisations into an impossible choice between exposing staff to risk or interrupting critical medical care for people in desperate need,” it said.
Sam Rose, director of Gaza affairs for the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency Unrwa, told the BBC that this will have “major negative consequences on the ability of international organisations to provide healthcare inside Gaza”. […]
MSF says it currently provides at least 20% of hospital beds in Gaza and operates around 20 health centres. Last year, it carried out more than 800,000 medical consultations and more than 10,000 infant deliveries, while providing drinking water.”
According to a COGAT statement issued on December 30th 2025:
“The organization’s [MSF] attempts to attribute to itself a central impact on the medical response in the Gaza Strip are inconsistent with reality and are not supported by data. In practice, out of approximately 220 primary care clinics and medical points operating throughout the Gaza Strip, the organization operates only five. Out of 15 field hospitals established during the war, only two were operated by MSF, alongside 18 active government hospitals. The organization has fewer than 30 international staff operating in the Gaza Strip, with the bulk of its activity relying on local employees. In addition, from the start of the current ceasefire until today, the organization has brought in only 95 aid trucks, a negligible number compared to the tens of thousands of trucks that entered during the ceasefire.
These figures illustrate that the organization’s contribution to Gaza’s healthcare system does not justify the media campaign it is leading.”
Wright’s amplification of MSF’s claims concerning “drinking water” fails to inform readers that the NGO’s contribution to that sector is less than 1% of the total supply.
Wright’s portrayal of the background to the story reads as follows:
“On 30 December, Israel announced that it was going to revoke the licences of 37 international non-governmental organisations working in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, saying they had failed to meet new registration requirements.
At the time the diaspora ministry said the measure was needed to prevent “the infiltration of terrorist operatives into humanitarian structures”.
The groups – which include MSF, ActionAid and the Norwegian Refugee Council – were told their operations must end within 60 days.
The move was condemned by 10 countries, including the UK, France and Canada, who said the rules would have a severe impact on access to essential services.”
As readers may recall, the BBC self-conscripted to the publicity campaign run by NGOs that chose to refuse to comply with the registration process back in August 2025:
BBC NEWS PROMOTES ANOTHER NGO CAMPAIGN BUT FAILS TO TELL ALL
In December 2025 the BBC News website re-promoted that publicity campaign, once again without informing its audiences of the problematic records of some of the NGOs concerned:
BBC AGAIN FAILS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION NEEDED TO UNDERSTAND NGOS STORY
As this latest report by George Wright once again demonstrates, the BBC is clearly not interested in providing its audiences with the full range of information needed to understand MSF’s refusal to comply with the registration policy intended to prevent the exploitation of humanitarian aid by terrorist organisations in the Gaza Strip. Instead, like all too many media organisations, the BBC prefers to uncritically amplify a political campaign run by one of the many NGOs that it apparently considers exempt from scrutiny simply because they self-describe as ‘humanitarian’.
Related Articles:
BBC NEWS IGNORES FOLLOW-UP ON PROMOTED MSF CLAIM
THE MEDICALIZATION OF HAMAS DISINFORMATION: MÉDECINS SANS FRONTIÈRES (MSF)
REVISITING BBC EDITORIAL POLICY ON NGOS
