Israel is trying to evict Doctors Without Borders from Gaza

Palestinian patients wait to be examined at the Doctors Without Borders clinic in the Al-Rimal neighborhood of Gaza, December 31, 2025. OMAR AL-QATTAA/AFP

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n December 1985, famine had ravaged Ethiopia for over a year, prompting global outrage and mobilization. But Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which had deployed dozens of specialists on the ground since March 1984, condemned the misuse of international aid by the Marxist-Leninist regime in Addis Ababa. That government exploited the humanitarian catastrophe to forcibly relocate populations to the south of the country in order to exert greater control, even if it meant resettling them in appalling conditions.

MSF's denunciation of that scandal resulted in its expulsion from Ethiopia. The French foreign ministry "regretted" the abrupt end to the "rescue and assistance mission," even as it "inspired admiration" and had "already saved thousands of human lives." Outrage over the Ethiopian diktat was widespread, further isolating the dictatorship.

The preferred target of the Israeli government