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As Israeli forces intensify its attacks on the Gaza Strip, Doctors Without Borders on Wednesday warned of the deliberate collapse of Gaza's health care system under ongoing attacks and Israel’s policy of using aid as a “tool” to serve its own ends.

In a statement, the humanitarian group said that at least 20 medical facilities have been damaged or rendered partially or fully out of service in the last week alone.

On Monday, Israeli strikes hit the Nasser hospital compound in the southern city of Khan Younis for the third time in two months, damaging the Health Ministry’s pharmacy store and forcing the closure of several departments run by Doctors Without Borders.

"As people remain in desperate need of medical care and aid, Israeli authorities must stop the deliberate asphyxiation of Gaza and the annihilation of its healthcare system, that is underpinning their campaign of ethnic cleansing," the group said.

Pascale Coissard, the group’s emergency coordinator in Khan Younis, said Israel letting only limited aid into Gaza is "a way to instrumentalize aid, making it a tool to further Israeli forces' military objectives."

"The Israeli authorities' decision to allow a ridiculously inadequate amount of aid into Gaza after months of an air-tight siege signals their intention to avoid the accusation of starving people in Gaza, while in fact keeping them barely surviving," she said, referring to Israel’s strict aid blockade since March 2, only recently relaxed to let a trickle of aid in.

Before October 2023, around 500 aid trucks entered Gaza daily, according to the UN. The current figure of 100 trucks per day is completely inadequate for tackling the growing humanitarian crisis, according to aid groups and international organizations.

The statement added that evacuation orders continued to displace civilians, citing the Site Management Cluster, which reported that over 138,000 people were displaced on May 15-20 alone.

It said Israel’s attacks had diminished hospital bed capacity and severely disrupted the treatment of patients and the wounded. Citing the Health Ministry, it pointed out that following the siege of the Indonesian Hospital, all public hospitals in North Gaza are now out of service.

"Attacks on civilians and healthcare must stop now, and aid must enter Gaza in sufficient quantities and in a way that allows it to reach those who need it," it said, calling on "Israel's allies to exert all their pressure to make this happen as a matter of extreme urgency."

"Every day that is lost reinforces their complicity in the annihilation of the people of Gaza," it stressed.

Since March 2, Israel kept Gaza crossings closed to food, medical, and humanitarian aid, deepening an already severe humanitarian crisis in the enclave, only opening the crossings to a minimal amount of aid in recent days.

According to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), hundreds of thousands of Palestinians eat only one meal every two or three days amid Israel’s crippling blockade.

Rejecting international calls for a ceasefire, the Israeli army has pursued a brutal offensive against Gaza since October 2023, killing more than 53,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children.