Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is devastated about the death of Reem Abu Lebdeh, an associate trustee of the MSF UK Board and former staff member in Gaza, whom we believe was killed sometime in December 2023.
Though the exact circumstances and date of Reem’s death remain unclear, we believe she was killed along with members of her family at their home in Khan Younis in southern Gaza. Some members of her family remain unaccounted for.
When the Israeli military campaign moved more extensively into Khan Younis over two months ago, we knew Reem was sheltering with her parents and siblings. Regrettably, contact with Reem was lost shortly thereafter and all attempts to regain it failed due to telecommunications networks being cut off.
However, news of Reem's death and that of her family members gradually emerged in the following weeks. To this day, the zone around their house, which was heavily bombarded by Israeli forces, remains too dangerous to approach.
Reem worked as a physiotherapist for MSF in Gaza from 2018 until 2022, and last year was appointed as an associate trustee of the MSF UK Board.
Reem is the fifth MSF colleague killed in Gaza since the beginning of the war and several members of our staff remain unaccounted for.
We are still mourning the loss of lab technician Mohammed Al Ahel, killed in an airstrike with members of his family; volunteer nurse Alaa Al-Shawa, who was shot in the head during a planned evacuation in an MSF convoy; and doctors Mahmoud Abu Nujaila and Ahmad Al Sahar, who were killed in a strike on Al-Awda Hospital. All of these MSF colleagues were killed in November 2023.
Thousands of people in Gaza are losing their families, their homes, and their lives. More than 30,000 people have been killed and over 71,000 wounded since the war began in October.
MSF teams continue to provide medical care in various locations in southern Gaza, including in Rafah, where 1.5 million forcibly displaced people are living in dire conditions with extremely limited access to medical care and humanitarian aid.
We reiterate our urgent call for an immediate and sustained ceasefire to spare the lives of civilians and allow for substantial aid to enter Gaza.
