Doctors Without Borders urgent alert: West Bank on brink of ethnic cleansing by Israel
Palestinians are being forced from their land, says MSF.
Image: MSF
Palestinians are facing forced mass displacement across the West Bank by Israeli forces and settlers, raising the risk of ethnic cleansing, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) or Doctors Without Borders has warned.
The medical charity said that in its 36 years in Palestine, the suffering caused by Israel's occupation had become 'normalised'. It accused Israel of pursuing policies designed to remove people from their land and prevent their return.
MSF urged states with close ties to Israel, including the US and European Union members, to pressure it to stop displacing Palestinians and to end what it described as an illegal occupation.
"Over the past few years, we have seen the impact of the Israeli forces and settlers exerting increased force and control over the Palestinian people, culminating in a genocide in Gaza, and military repression and settler violence escalating across the West Bank," said Simona Onidi, MSF project coordinator.
According to MSF, refugee camps have been raided and emptied, and schools and health centres demolished.
"These actions are entrenched in the broader settler-colonial process, where the risk of ethnic cleansing through the forced removal of Palestinian communities will cement permanent demographic change," Onidi said.
Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), Professor Usuf Chikte said MSF has now corroborated what the Palestinians, the PSC, and global advocates have long rallied against.
"The Israeli regime is conducting a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank which is an ongoing and acceleration of what was previously an incremental genocide. This is not a warning of future danger. It is an ongoing atrocity unfolding in real time," Chikte said.
He went on to say that what MSF describes is forced displacement, settler pogroms (an organised massacre and looting of helpless people), medical blockades, and attacks on entire communities.
"This is not a deviation, but the operating logic of a colonial system," Chikte added. "We echo MSF's call and amplify it with fire: The world cannot claim ignorance. The time for half-measures and mealy-mouthed 'both sides' platitudes is over. This is not about tensions or conflict. This is about a people being crushed under a system designed to erase them."
South African activist Mandla Mandela who is sailing with the Global Sumud Flotilla to break the siege in Gaza tied South Africa's anti-apartheid history to ongoing struggles for justice and human rights abroad.
Our struggle for liberation is intertwined with the struggle of the Palestinian people," he told the Middle East Eye. "They inspired us during our darkest days and supported us until we attained our freedom."
xolile.mtembu@iol.co.za
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