MSF WEST BANK: While the world looks elsewhere Palestinian land is disappearing
“The military often comes at night, soldiers swarming the neighbourhood, breaking into our homes, destroying our property and arresting people en masse. Our houses are being seized and demolished,” says Sari Ahmad from Al Fakhiet in Masafer Yatta, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). “And the settler attacks have grown more brutal and deadly. Most of them are armed nowadays and they shoot to kill.”
Sari, who suffers from diabetes, received treatment from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams until January, however, as violence and movement restrictions have increased, our teams can no longer access dozens of people in need in the area.
In recent weeks, the dramatic escalation in the conflict between the US, Israel and Iran has added another layer of violence and fear across the OPT.
“When the sirens start, we gather in the hallway of our home, away from the windows. In the distance, explosions echo across the hills as interceptors strike projectiles,” says Yasmin Mohammad, MSF community health worker in Hebron. Unlike in Israeli towns and cities, where shelters and warning systems are widespread, most Palestinians in the West Bank have no access to shelters or protected spaces. When debris falls, families have little choice but to stay inside and hope.
While the world turns its attention to the flying missiles, Israeli forces have been intensifying their military operations across the West Bank. Most checkpoints remain closed, which means for most people normal daily activities are now even more time consuming, at times impossible, and carry the risk of injury or death from unprovoked Israeli attacks.
“We feel the space in which we can live, move, and build our lives around is shrinking— while the world looks elsewhere,” says Yasmin Mohammad.
Violence by Israeli settlers has increased in several areas across the West Bank. Residents report settlers entering Palestinian villages or farmland while openly carrying weapons, as well as attacking Palestinians in their cars as they move from place to place.
Violence and fear shape lives in the West Bank
Between 7 October 2023 and 7 March 2026 1,071 Palestinians, including 233 children, have been killed in the occupied West Bank, and Jerusalem, according to OCHA. Eleven were killed by settlers this year alone. “It is shocking and deeply disturbing”, says Salam Yousef, an MSF staff member in the West Bank.
“They attack and kill people without consequences – it feels like there is no justice for us, like our lives don’t count,” says Yousef. “Last week, they [Israeli forces] shot a family of six who were driving home. Only two of the sons survived; they are orphans now – their family was killed in front of them; their brothers were seven and five years old.”
The widespread and multilayered violence has reshaped life for Palestinians – the sense of an existential threat captures a broader reality unfolding across the West Bank. “These developments feel like more than a series of isolated incidents, it is a slow but significant transformation, step by step Israeli forces and settlers are taking over,” says Salam Yousef. “It is frightening because we have no control and the world doesn’t seem to care about what happens to us.”
She adds: “If the world continues to look away, the shrinking of Palestinian land will not stop. It will simply continue — checkpoint by checkpoint, road by road, house by house — until a reality that once seemed temporary becomes permanent.”
“Our lives and dreams are on hold”
“The psychological toll of this environment is immense,” says Elsa Salvatore, MSF psychotherapist in Nablus. “It’s not only about physical violence from settler attacks or what happens at checkpoints. In our sessions, people often speak about the humiliation they experience daily and the constant uncertainty. They become hyper-vigilant, unable to sleep, always expecting something bad to happen.
“Most people have stopped making plans. Many suffer from symptoms related to post-traumatic-stress-disorder (PTSD) - although PTSD is not correctly describing it, because they are not ‘post’ the traumatic experience, they are still in it, continuously experiencing trauma and uncertainty,” she says.
During this time, when violence, insecurity and restrictions on daily life are increasingly widespread across the West Bank, it is vital that people have access to healthcare. But in reality, it is just the opposite: access to medical care is blocked or severely obstructed.
In certain regions, like Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, NGOs are blocked from providing essential humanitarian support, as large parts of the area are designated as a military zone and movement is heavily restricted by the Israeli forces. Consequently, we have had to reduce the number of our mobile clinics in the area from 17 to just 5 since September 2025; patients are being cut off from even the most basic medical services. “We feel abandoned and forgotten. There is no one coming to us anymore. When we get sick, we have no choice but to walk for miles. Sometimes we just stay and endure the pain,” says a resident from Masafer Yatta.
Greater needs need more access not less
Israel’s restrictive new rules threaten to drastically reduce this already insufficient aid. As MSF is one of 37 NGOs whose registration was not renewed by the Israeli authorities as of 1 March 2026, our international staff had to leave the OPT. While our Palestinian colleagues continue to provide healthcare, the future of our projects in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is uncertain. In Nablus, Jenin and Tulkarem, our activities have also been significantly reduced due to both security concerns and new administrative obstacles imposed since 1 March.
“I’m scared and feel hopeless at the thought that MSF’s services could cease to exist,” says one of our mental health patients in Nablus.
Our teams do their best to provide remote psychosocial sessions online, but this does not provide the same support as in-person care. It especially doesn’t work for survivors of sexual violence, families of low socioeconomic level with telecommunication barriers and patients with chronic psychiatric conditions, such as psychosis.
Access to healthcare is a fundamental human need and a cornerstone of community resilience. When healthcare systems become fragmented, preventive care declines, chronic illnesses worsen, and communities grow more vulnerable. Amid the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in the OPT, MSF will continue to provide healthcare for as long as possible, doing as much as we can.
What is unfolding in the West Bank today is not inevitable, nor is it invisible. International humanitarian law is clear: As the occupying power, Israel has a legal responsibility to ensure the protection of civilians and to facilitate access to essential medical care. The reality is anything but that. Living conditions for Palestinians in the West Bank are dangerous and blatantly inhumane. “We just want to live safely, raise our children without fear and to be treated with dignity,” says Salam Yousef.
Testimony Salam Yousef, MSF staff Jerusalem: 19.03.2026
My name is Salam Yousef, I have been working with MSF in Jerusalem for 12 years.
In the West Bank, we live in a constant shadow of violence that comes from every direction. On the ground, there are encounters no one can predict—Israeli soldiers present at every turn, and settlers moving through the roads with a sense of unchecked power, sometimes attacking anyone in their path without warning, often under the protection of the army. There is no clear line between what is safe and what is not; even the most ordinary moment can suddenly shift into fear.
Even the sky no longer feels like a place of distance or safety. There is a quiet, constant fear of what might come from above—ballistic missiles launched from far away, with no way of knowing where they will fall or when. The hardest part is not just the sound of the sirens or the sound of the blasts, but where to go and where to seek shelter. We feel completely unprotected and caught between what happens on the ground and what may come from the sky, we are left holding on to our children, trying to offer reassurance in a reality that offers very little of it.
I am a mother of two children who are growing up in a reality where violence is not something distant or abstract. It is visible, immediate, and impossible to fully explain. They watch, they notice, and hear the sirens, and then they ask questions that have no easy answers:
"Why is this happening?”
"Why are there so many checkpoints around grandmother’s house.”
"Are we safe?"
"Will it happen again?"
And in those moments, I find myself searching for words that can protect them.
How do you explain fear without passing it on?
How can I describe the world as safe, when their experience tells them otherwise?
We try to create normalcy—through small routines, through laughter, through holding on to moments of calm. But even those moments carry the weight of everything surrounding us.
Living here means learning how to keep going despite the heaviness. It means carrying both resilience and exhaustion at the same time. It means protecting hope, even when it feels fragile.
Because in the end, what we hold on to most is not just survival—but the belief that our children deserve to grow up in a world where their questions have simpler answers.