On Jan. 10, 2026, MS NOW (formerly “MSNBC”) welcomed Tirana Hassan, former director of Human Rights Watch (“HRW”) and freshly minted CEO of Médecins Sans Frontières-USA (“MSF”), a.k.a. Doctors Without Borders, in her inaugural media appearance since starting her new position on Jan. 5, 2026. The network gave Hassan a platform to deny what Israel had offered as proof of prior terrorist infiltration in MSF and accuse the Israel Defense Forces (“IDF”) of having targeted and killed medical professionals in Gaza.
Hassan has no shortage of work experience at organizations demonstrably hostile to Israel. Before joining MSF, she worked at HRW from 2010 – 2015 and 2020 – 2025 and at Amnesty International in the intervening five years. In 2014 Hassan tweeted, “When Israel strikes ‘targets’ and takes out large civilian casualties it’s sloppy, reckless and illegal.” A decade later, her Instagram posts in 2024 are still replete with accusations against Israel of genocide and apartheid.
While MSF postures itself as “independent, impartial and neutral,” CAMERA and others have extensively documented MSF’s Hamas sympathies.
“The Weekend Primetime” segment began with a typical anti-Israel monologue from MS NOW host Ayman Mohyeldin framing Israel’s decision to ban MSF and other organizations from Gaza as a plot to restrict reporting by humanitarian organizations’ “eyewitnesses.”
Mohyeldin’s introduction synced perfectly with MSF’s libelous insinuation that Israel is barring the organization because its teams “speak out” about what they see “with their own eyes . . . death, destruction, and the human consequences of genocidal violence . . .”
Hassan was then introduced. She called Gaza “one of the worst humanitarian crises in MSF’s working history,” and alleged that MSF supports 1/3 of births and 20% of hospital beds in Gaza and is the second largest provider of water, emphasizing how critical their role is in Gaza. But according to data from Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (“COGAT”), the unit responsible for civil-humanitarian efforts in Gaza, there is no shortage of clean drinking water in Gaza. Water pipelines from Israel to Gaza and desalination plants provide more than enough clean drinking water. An MSF video stated the organization provides 2.5 million liters of water per day (2,500m3 per day), but the State of Palestine Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (“WASH”) Cluster’s distributes 21,000m3/day of drinking water and Israeli water company, Mekorot, provided 584,000m3 in a week (average of 83,000m3 per day). MSF’s water provisions: less than 1%. COGAT also reported MSF operated only five of 220 primary care clinics.
Co-panelist Elise Jordan asked Hassan what the Israeli government’s rationale for the ban on MSF was, to which Hassan acknowledged the Israeli authorities’ assertion that MSF has not complied with registration requirements.
Hassan explained MSF had gone to the Israeli authorities to discuss MSF’s concerns, including “giving over lists of names and a lot of details of [their] Palestinian staff,” explaining their apprehension over providing names and other staff information to the IDF existed “because in this war [MSF has] seen an absolutely unacceptable number of health care workers being targeted and killed during the hostilities by the [IDF].”
When asked by MS NOW’s Catherine Rampell if Hassan could speak to the Israeli government’s statement that they want these lists because of the possibility that terrorists infiltrated some of the aid groups, Hassan responded, “MSF has very clear vetting processes for all of our staff.” She pretended Israel had not furnished any real proof for this assertion and said, “the allegations from the Israeli authorities are flimsy, unsubstantiated and being used to discredit organizations.”
But Hassan had to know the allegations by Israel were far from flimsy or unsubstantiated for at least one reason: after the IDF provided proof that MSF employee Fadi al-Wadiya (who was killed by the IDF) was a rocket specialist and member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, MSF issued a statement in June 2024 that it “had no prior knowledge of Fadi’s alleged involvement in military activities” and was “deeply concerned by [the] allegations and [was] taking them very seriously.”
More MSF employees killed by the IDF were similarly exposed as terrorists, though MSF did not issue statements. MSF employee Nasser Hamdi Abdelatif Al-Shalfouh was identified as a fighter and sniper in Hamas’ Jabalia Battalion. As detailed by NGO Monitor on Nov. 23, 2023, MSF employed Dr. Mahmoud Abu Nujaila, who was head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s (“PFLP”) “health group” – at least as of December 2018 – and openly supported PFLP.
MS NOW declined to ask Hassan about any of these terrorists.
Instead, Hassan stated MSF has approximately 1,000 Palestinian staff members in Gaza and that the organization “would never willingly or knowingly hire anybody who would compromise [their] organization’s well-earned impartiality and neutrality.”
The IDF has amply documented how medical facilities in Gaza were used as Hamas bases of operation and weapon storage, as well as hiding places for operatives and hostages, among civilians, not to mention how Hamas has fought from inside hospitals and used tunnels built underneath them. While NGOs have refused to publicly admit to Hamas’ military use of medical spaces, an extensive report published by NGO Monitor in September 2025 included MSF (France, Belgium, Spain) among an extensive list of organizations “subject to Hamas’ diktats.” MSF-France was explicitly identified as having selected the only room in Abu Yousef El-Najar Hospital with a safe landline belonging to Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades, for MSF to work separately there. Unsurprisingly, MS NOW did not ask Hassan about this.
MS NOW also did not ask Hassan about an allegation made by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (“GHF”) that MSF refused to treat GHF humanitarian workers who had been wounded by Hamas in August 2025. MS NOW further opted not to inquire about former MSF Secretary General Alain Destexhe’s December 2023 report alleging possible links or complicity between MSF staff and Hamas.
MS NOW abandoned its journalistic integrity in its interview of Hassan. By failing to confront her about the documented employee-terrorists, which reflected serious organizational vetting deficiencies in a most charitable interpretation, the segment functioned as partisan amplification rather than journalism.
Tough questions are the minimum standard for credibility – that goes for both MSF’s refusal to turn over its list of employees to Israel and MS NOW’s refusal to ask hard questions of MSF’s new CEO.