Medical aid group Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres - MSF) on Monday urged the EU to pressure Israel to grant unrestricted humanitarian access to Gaza – and stop what it described as the "slaughter" of Palestinians, in an open letter to the top officials of the bloc and its 27 member-states.
The open letter shared at a Brussels news conference called for an immediate end to the withholding of aid on security grounds, which MSF said amounted to "collective punishment – a war crime."
The group further called for steps to boost medical evacuations, saying around 13,000 people, including more than 4,500 children, were in urgent need.
"Our message to the leaders is simple. We urge you to use all political, economic, and diplomatic tools to exert real pressure on Israel to stop the carnage in Gaza and to allow unhindered humanitarian aid," MSF International's secretary general, Christopher Lockyear told reporters.
The EU has launched a review into whether Israel is complying with human rights principles laid out in its association agreement with the bloc.
The bloc's foreign ministers will address the matter – and potential consequences – in their meeting next week.
MSF's letter said that "the scale of suffering in Gaza demands more than your empty rhetoric."
Israel, after pounding most of Gaza into rubble following Hamas's attack of Oct. 7, 2023, cut off all food and other vital supplies to the besieged territory for more than two months starting in March.
Israel eventually let in some aid, but through a controversial U.S.-backed initiative coordinated with the Israeli military, a setup the U.N. says violates basic humanitarian principles.
Dozens of Palestinians have been killed trying to reach distribution points.
Lockyear took aim at unspecified European countries for continuing to supply Israel with weapons as the death toll in Gaza has surpassed 55,000 people, the majority of them civilians.
"Will you continue issuing empty statements of concern over the situation in Gaza while sending the arms that are killing and maiming the children that we are treating every day?" Lockyear asked.
MSF teams shared accounts of the critical conditions on the ground, with medics facing constant evacuation orders and the threat of air strikes.
"We don't have enough hospital beds, there's no way we can respond to the needs," said Virginia Moneti, an MSF doctor who returned from the territory last week.
"This is not sustainable, this is not human, this has to stop," she said.
