Gaza Strip doctors donate blood to save their patients.

The medical charity Doctors Without Borders said Thursday that doctors in the Gaza Strip are donating blood to save their patients after dozens of Palestinians were shot dead while trying to collect food aid.

Hundreds of the organization's employees staged a protest in Geneva on Thursday, condemning Israel's "militarization" of humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip.

Protesters carried a large banner reading "Gaza: All red lines have been crossed," demanding an end to the Israeli-imposed blockade and the delivery of sufficient aid, which the Palestinian population relies on.

"People need the basics of life... and they need them with dignity," the organization's director general in Switzerland, Stephen Cornish, told Reuters during the demonstration.

He added: "If you fear for your life, running with packages that are being opened, this is something beyond anything we have seen before... These attacks killed dozens... They were left bleeding on the ground."

Cornish said that staff at one of the hospitals where Doctors Without Borders works were forced to donate blood because most Palestinians are now too malnourished to donate.

Israel allowed the private Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to begin distributing food supplies in Gaza last week, after completely closing the Strip to all supplies since the beginning of March.

Gaza authorities say at least 102 Palestinians were killed and nearly 500 others injured while trying to obtain aid from food distribution sites in the first eight days.

Witnesses said Israeli forces opened fire on the crowds. The Israeli military said Hamas fighters were responsible for the shooting, although it admitted on Tuesday, after at least 27 people were killed, that its forces had fired on "suspects" who approached its positions.

Doctors Without Borders medical staff were among those at the forefront of witnessing the chaos surrounding the distribution of aid provided by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

"We received many wounded people after distributing aid, and this occurred in an atmosphere of panic and violence," said Micaela Serafani, head of MSF in Switzerland.

Doctors Without Borders has lost 11 of its staff in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war on October 7, 2023. In a statement, the organization said, "Only a permanent ceasefire and the immediate opening of the Gaza Strip's borders to humanitarian aid, particularly food, medical supplies, and fuel, can mitigate this man-made catastrophe."