MSF says ninth employee killed in Gaza, with 10 family members

GENEVA: Medical charity MSF on Friday confirmed the death of a ninth employee in Gaza, saying he and 10 family members had been trapped and starving when they were killed by an Israeli air strike last month.

Doctors Without Borders, which is known by its French acronym, said it was “devastated to report the death of Bilal Okal, our colleague killed by Israeli forces in Jabalia, North Gaza”.

The man, along with his wife, seven children, his mother and a sister had become trapped in their building during a violent siege by Israeli forces, before being killed by an Israeli airstrike in December.

MSF said in a statement that it had “lost all contact with Bilal on December 1”, and had only received confirmation of his death on Sunday, when the current ceasefire in Gaza took effect.

“In this tragic moment, our thoughts are with Bilal’s family, friends and colleagues mourning his death,” it said.

The 37-year-old hygiene specialist, who joined MSF in 2017, was the ninth staff member of the organisation to be killed in Gaza since the war erupted there following Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

Also read: MSFT: Cloud-computing boosts Microsoft’s third quarterly performance

They figure among more than 330 aid workers killed throughout the war, most of them from the United Nations agency supporting Palestinian refugees, according to UN numbers from November.

“When we last heard from Bilal, he was running out of food and water and was stuck in his home with his relatives,” MSF said.

“They had tried to leave Jabalia but the bombings were so intense that it was unsafe to move.”

The organisation said it had learned from Bilal’s brother on November 11 that his sheltering family members “were starving but were too scared to look for food or leave because anything that moved got shot”.

“MSF strongly condemns the killing of Bilal and his family in their home by Israeli forces,” it said.

“We can only imagine the terror they faced while they were trapped under siege and horrendous violence before they were killed.”

MSF warned that across Gaza, “people are still suffering and families continue to look for their missing relatives whom they fear have been killed”.