Analysis of New York Times article: Inside the Doctors Without Borders Clinics That Israel Is Closing in Gaza – The New York Times, Jan. 17, 2026 by Bilal Shbair, David M. Halbfinger (Jerusalem bureau chief) and Aaron Boxerman

  1. Background: In late 2025, the Israeli government informed NGOs including Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) /Doctors Without Borders that as a result of their refusal to complete the new NGO registration process, they would not be eligible to continue to operate in areas under Israeli control, including Gaza. (See details here.) 
  2. In response, MSF (an NGO superpower, with an annual budget of US $2.4 billion), launched a media and political pressure campaign to force the withdrawal of Israel’s NGO registration procedure – specifically the requirement that NGOs submit employee and “volunteer” lists for vetting. The Times article presenting MSF as an essential medical services provider in Gaza is part of this pressure campaign. 
  3. The article is composed of claims about MSF services in Gaza, but this is a diversion from the NGO regulation issues and terror ties of MSF staff and volunteers.
    • The assertions regarding MSF’s ostensible centrality in Gaza are based on anecdotal evidence. E.g: “‘If M.S.F. stops working, people will lose their lives,’ Ms. Hamada, 24, said.”
    • The piece uses MSF site visits and MSF-arranged interviews to casually dismiss criticism of MSF, without any additional evidence: “In publicly seeking to explain their decision to bar Doctors Without Borders, Israeli officials have also asserted that the group was exaggerating its importance in Gaza. But visits to several M.S.F. clinics and hospitals showed its vital role in the territory’s medical system.” This is (not coincidentally) the phrase in MSF’s press releases attacking Israel’s NGO registration system.
    • Systematic data published by COGAT, the IDF body responsible for aid coordination, concludes that MSF’s role in Gaza is negligible – the group has operated up to only five clinics/ medical points in Gaza since October 7, out of approximately 220. 
  4. Major NYT omissions – MSF’s terror ties
    • MSF’s and other NGOs’ terror links are one of the catalysts for Israel’s regulations. According to the Times: “Israel has produced evidence that one M.S.F. worker killed in an airstrike in 2024 was a member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and involved in rocket production.” 
    • However, MSF’s history of employing terrorists goes far beyond this one worker, and points to a sustained trend of, at best, insufficient vetting procedures.  See, for example, NGO Monitor’s report on MSF-linked doctors Mahmoud Abu Nujaila and Ahmad Al-Sahar, and the Israeli government report on MSF that includes open-source details on terror links.
  5. Major NYT omissions – MSF’s history of anti-Israel demonization
    • MSF rhetoric includes accusing Israel of “genocide,” “collective punishment,” “apartheid,” “indiscriminate bombings,” and “wholesale massacres,” while omitting the victims of Palestinian atrocities and Hamas’ large scale-use of hospitals, residences and schools for terror attacks.
    • In Oct 2023, immediately after the Al-Ahli hospital explosion, MSF repeatedly platformed Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah to falsely accuse Israel of the “massacre” (the explosion was due to a failed rocket fired from Gaza that targeted Israel). See Gerald Steinberg and E. Levenson,  “The Humanitarian Mask” in Quillette.
    • In Dec 2023, former MSF Secretary General Alain Destexhe published a report titled “[MSF], an Accomplice of Hamas?” MSF, he wrote, “shows a systematic bias in favour of Hamas and hostility to Israel.” It “has failed in its humanitarian purpose and violated its own charter” – “a significant proportion of its staff seem to share the Hamas point of view and support the terrorist attacks of 7 October…The proximity between some MSF staff and Hamas raises questions about possible links between MSF in Gaza and extremist groups.”
  6. Double standards (Hypocrisy): MSF is quoted as asserting that complying with the Israeli registration process would violate “European privacy laws and rules.” This is not supported with any evidence. In contrast, MSF and other NGOs provided Hamas with this information for many years, as corroborated by PCHR, another well-known Gaza-based NGO.