JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel said an MSF nurse shot at troops on the Gaza border this week, a charge the medical charity said Friday it was investigating as it confirmed the death of an employee.
“Doctors Without Borders (MSF) confirms that one of its employees, Hani Mohammed Almajdalawi, was killed in Gaza on Monday, August 20, 2018,” the organisation said in a statement.
“MSF is working to verify and understand the circumstances regarding this extremely serious incident, and is not able to comment further at this stage,” it added.
COGAT, the Israeli defence ministry body responsible for activities in the Palestinian territories, issued a statement late Thursday slamming MSF as “Terrorism Without Borders”.
“Hani al-Almajdalawi, who tried to infiltrate through the security fence in the northern Gaza Strip while he was armed with a rifle, opened fire toward military forces and even threw an explosive device at them,” it said.
COGAT said Almajdalawi was “a nurse who worked for the international organisation Doctors Without Borders.”
MSF has around 200 local and foreign staff in Gaza and in May the charity condemned Israel’s use of force in border protests as “unacceptable and inhuman”.
It described the army’s policy as “shooting with live ammunition at demonstrators, on the assumption that anyone approaching the separation fence is a legitimate target.”
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