“The practice of medicine is under attack,” said Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health and South African physician. She made these comments recently, in relation to Israel’s relentless bombardment of Gaza. “We are in the darkest time for the right to health in our lifetimes. As a practicing medical doctor, I cannot fathom what my Gazan colleagues are enduring. They are working while their colleagues and loved ones are under attack. Many have been killed while treating their patients.”
International humanitarian law (Geneva and Hague Conventions, the Rome Statute, occupational law, and international and humanitarian law) is clear that healthcare workers (HCWs) and facilities must be protected during war zones. We are beyond the debate whether Israel is using healthcare as a weapon of war, and whether it is guilty of systematically targeting medical facilities and workers — the evidence of that is overwhelming. What’s prudent now is for urgent action to be mobilised via every avenue to ensure that Gaza’s remaining healthcare infrastructure is protected, accessibility ensured to its two million largely civilian population who remain under Israeli attack, and that what remains is made salvageable.
Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng, Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health. (Photo: Gallo Images / Sunday Times / Alon Skuy)
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On 12 December, the WHO reiterated its call for the protection of health care and humanitarian assistance in Gaza. This came after an aid convoy, led by the WHO, Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha), completed a high-risk mission to Al-Ahli Hospital to deliver medical supplies and transfer critically injured patients to a hospital in the south. One PRCS member was detained, stripped and handcuffed by Israeli forces for more than 24 hours, while a delay in treatment at multiple Israeli checkpoints resulted in the death of one of the patients.
Healthcare targeted
In two months, the WHO has independently recorded more than 300 Israeli-led healthcare-related attacks in Gaza, affecting 60 health facilities and 76 ambulances. Numerous other humanitarian organisations, including Médecins Sans Frontières, have confirmed these numbers. Only 11 out of 36 hospitals in Gaza are partially functional and able to admit new patients, although services are limited. The Palestinian Health Ministry has confirmed that from 7 October to 19 December, 340 Palestinian HCWs have been killed by Israel — this translates to five HCWs a day. More than 100 have been detained by the Israeli army, their whereabouts unknown weeks later, including the director of Gaza’s largest hospital (Al-Shifa) Dr Muhammad Abu Salmiya.
We read these numbers in the news as just that, numbers, but do we understand the gravity of what they mean? How do we grapple with the moral depravity that dictates Israel’s actions and what the long-lasting effects are going to be, both for Gaza and our moral conscience for allowing this darkness to envelop us in our lifetimes? “Never again”, has indeed happened again.
Doctors and medical personnel of the King Hussein Cancer Foundation and Centre in Amman, Jordan hold placards on 9 November 2023 as they stage a demonstration in solidarity with Palestinian civilians, the hospitals and the cancer patients in Gaza and to stress that they needed medical treatment, medical supplies and cancer therapy medicines. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Mohammad Ali)
There is significant circumstantial evidence that Israel has systematically targeted hospitals in Gaza, including that dozens of medical facilities were attacked over a seven-week period in November 2023, and many repeatedly. CNN reported that facilities were attacked after their locations were shared with Israeli forces by the US government, and many were attacked with close-range fire. The clearest indication of targeting is Israeli military officials’ own admission, on social media platform X, that they have conducted targeted operations on Al-Shifa and other hospitals, obviously unscrupulous to the manner in which their behaviour is delict and transgresses all boundaries of ethics and morality.
People wait in tent shelters in the darkness as fuel for electricity generation runs out, outside al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City early on 3 November, amid the ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas. (Photo: Dawood Nemer/AFP)
‘Medical apartheid’
The trend of attacks on Palestinian healthcare is one which has dictated the 75-year-long Israeli occupation. Barhoush and Amon revealed through evidence-based assessments and reviews (published in the medical journal Global Public Health) that there has been a systematic violation of Palestinians’ right to health in occupied Palestine by Israel, with records as early as 1967.
This has resulted in a form of ‘medical apartheid’ where Palestinians continue to encounter major barriers to realising their fundamental right to health. This was affirmed by WHO Representative for Gaza/West Bank Dr Richard Peeperkorn early last year already, when he described how Palestinians are denied their fundamental right to health daily through Israeli occupation.
This is unacceptable. As a HCW, I cannot even begin to fathom what my colleagues in Gaza are experiencing. I echo Dr Mofokeng’s sentiments when she said, “We have descended into depths from which we must quickly emerge. As a child survivor of apartheid, I understand all too well the trauma that children and people of Gaza will carry with them, not only from the current violence, but from the displacement and military occupation that they, and generations of their families, have endured.”
Indeed, Israel is taking us all to depths that we may never emerge from if we do not use all platforms and avenues accessible to us to challenge their nefarious and wicked behaviour. DM
Excellent!!!
This is all very boring – just as we all know that Hamas, with the collaboration of officers like Dr Muhammad Abu Salmiya, use medical facilities as military ops centres.
But do you know that Hamas’ charter states: “Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement … (There is) no solution for the Palestinian question except through jihad … The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: ‘The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!’ … “
If the Israelis’ behaviour is “nefarious and wicked”, what does this Hamas charter demonstrate?
You should become the second rate official Mark Regev in SA … to repeat the discredited lies and disinformation that the Israeli regime has been mouthing via the mainstream media for more than 7 decades now. Is that the reason why in over 2 months they have systematically targeted the assassination of so many journalists (watch out DM… you could be next on that list with insiders like these) based in the Palestinian territories … who expose the blatant lies the regime has manufactured ? By simply attaching the descriptor “terrorist” to anything Palestinian (as they and their sponsor the US did with the ANC during our struggle against apartheid) you think you can continue to discredit and demonise anyone and anything that is sympathetic to the colonised and subjugated? Time to wake up and take the beam out of your supremacist eye. 10% of the world’s population (the ‘western axis’) cannot and will not ‘rule’ the other 90% … until ‘jesus comes’ ! Whether you or I (& US and Israel and its few western lackeys) like it or not (like the current ANC) Hamas is the de facto representative of the Palestinians in Gaza … for now. Palestinians can decide for themselves who their leadership will be … not the US or Israel or its lackeys. We saw enough of ‘appointed leadership’ of people during the apartheid era in SA with ‘homeland’ leaders . The last remaining apartheid regime in the world with a 70 plus years of ‘forever wars’ history, must come to and end .
At no point does the commentator say Palestinians don’t have the right to self determination.
He mere points out Hamas’s well publicised and often publicly stated purpose and goal is.
They have rejected statehood 4 times. More often than not through the barrel of a gun.
Everyone except Hamas wants a multi state solution. Hamas publicly states they will only accept statehood after the Jews have been exterminated.
Beam in his eye mote in yours
There are no saints in this conflict
Kanu, there haven’t been elections in Gaza for 17 years..hardly democratic
And there have been in all those Arab states like Saudi Arabia etc … that the Israeli regime on behalf of its sponsor the US have been cosying up to with ‘agreements’ and accords ? Time to review things ! Now is not too late .
I have to agree with you!
The attacks are very saddening but need to be taken in context. They are being used by Hamas as a propaganda tool that was planned from the beginning by their deliberate placing of their facilities in, around or under hospitals, knowing that their very evil method of attack on Israel would be vigorously retaliated against. I am not a Jew, Christian or Muslim, simply a human being who understands the reality of starting a war with people who will defend themselves and their right to do so.
Their strategy is no different from the one used by Umkonto (& allies) during the struggle against the apartheid state. When a powerful state with access to ‘unlimited’ weaponry has to be confronted, all ‘options’ are on the table (so to speak) for the subjugated also. The powerful don’t just hand over or share power with those they wish to oppress and subjugate. Ask Rabin what happens when you treat your ‘enemy’ with respect . Your reading of ‘history’ is fundamentally skewed and attempts to mislead people to support the last remaining apartheid regime in the world & its current genocidal agenda. Please avoid the continuing propaganda of ‘defending’ yourself when you are in fact the occupying power in the territory, & have the undying support of the largest terrorist state (ask Prof Chomsky) in the world. The ‘attacks’ against the occupying power (like a state they do not have the means to go to ‘war’) are against subjugation and humiliation… that has been going on for over 70 years or at least since ’67 when the UN tried to ‘mediate’ the conflict. Do you realize that our own apartheid regime came into existence at about the same time the State of Israel did? Co-incidence ? Is it any wonder the UN (& its staff and sadly journos based in Palestine) have been added to the list of assassination targets of a depraved regime ? By the way I don’t fit the 3 religious groups you have mentioned either, but I do subscribe to notion of fairness of analysis and ethical behaviour.
It’s a mystery to me that someone can write such distorted rubbish and that it can then actually be published. Every one of these hospitals were proxies for Hamas. Tunnels, command centres, arms, weapons factories , food , water, gas stolen from aid trucks – all beneath the hospitals and part of the Hamas infrastructure. This has been documented by all leading international organisations and media outlets. The hospital staff were, and are, complicit in every way that Hamas used the hospital for its own purposes. The immorality of a terrorist organisation that hides and uses hospitals to protect its own and deliberately puts patients, doctors and civilians at extreme risk is entirely ignored by the author of this mendacious contribution. One can only wonder and be amazed by such moral confusion and intellectual inability to look at what was actually happening inside and under these “hospitals”.
You are 100% correct. Well said. Furthermore the people of Gaza, the general population, are complicit. They support Hamas and welcomed the slaughter on 7 October. Gift of the Givers is a Muslim organization and the author of this silly article appears to be Muslim. One therefore would hardly expect a balanced and non partisan viewpoint. However, to accuse the IDF of specifically targeting hospitals is utterly ridiculous and disingenuous. I would expect more of a specialist physician.
I agree with you completely. We must push back at this egregious distorted reporting by prople with limited thinking. Call it out for what it is.
Limited thinking ? Isn’t that almost what one of the ‘ministers’ in and during our apartheid regime said about ‘black’ people ? Seems like we still have a long way to go in eradicating (or at least diminishing) that Trumpian mindset ! It is going to be long and arduous battle to change the racist and prejudiced mindset still prevalent … and arrive at what ML King said about judging people by the content of their ‘character’ and not the colour of their skin … or I would add attire they wear. Gandhi in his loincloth would not even have gotten an audience with General Smuts !
Why do so many of the people with ‘superior thinking’ use acronyms instead of their real names to identify themselves ? Just wondering – like a fish called wanda ?
Your comment Agf Agf shows a distinct bias against “Muslims” in general
Exactly, Kanu comes from a perspective, far, far away from reality.
Seething. Such biased reporting. Hospitals as such are not “targets” – Hamas Deliberately chooses these sites as camouflage for their weapon factories, labs and hideouts. Wake Up!!!
Exactly!!
Hamas and those who are supporting the Palestinians in Gaza tell us there are no military facilities or Hamas bases in, on or under the hospitals. The IDF, Israeli government and sources in the USA tell us the hospitals are used by Hamas to hide their activities, as weapons stores and more.
Both sides are biased. Who, if anyone, is telling the truth?
Apply intellectual reasoning and logic. Who is more likely to be telling the truth? What have Israel got to gain by indiscriminately bombing a hospital? Versus what have they got to lose? The international press have been taken down and shown the tunnels and rooms under the hospitals. Are they all lying? Was it all staged? Lord Cameron and Blinken have been shown the tunnels. Are they lying when they say they have seen them. By what stretch of the imagination is Hamas trustworthy? If the tunnels are not accessed from Hospitals, Schools, Mosques and civilian apartments then how are they accessed?
The only footage I can find on press being shown tunnels was a tightly controlled by the IDF visit which was at best inconclusive and at worst stage managed propaganda. Lord Cameron did visit Kibbutz Be’eri but I can find no evidence that he or Blinken actually visited tunnels under hospitals.
Emphasis on “tightly controlled”. If the “evidence” is so “clear” why not allow all journalists access included free-lance journalists. And the whole world now knows that there were no 40 beheaded babies, so indeed, who is more likely to be telling the truth? And if you do a proper search, you will also find that Cochav Elkayam-Levy, the chair of the Israeli investigation committee into alleged rape cases, presented an old photo of Kurdish female recruits as Israeli girls who were sexually assaulted by Hamas fighters.
Hamas’ charter states: “Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement … (There is) no solution for the Palestinian question except through jihad … The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: ‘The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!’ … “
As usual, nothing but drivel
Instead of asking “Who is more likely to be telling the truth?” Ask: “Why have Israel assassinated more than 100 journalists, including an Israeli journalist for sharing actual information on what transpired on Oct 7 and in Gaza”
We can’t share links here, but you can find the “new” Israel map if you search for it. It includes Mount Sinai, parts of Iraq, Egypt and Saudi Arabia and of course The West Bank and Gaza. Who is more likely to be telling the truth, definitely not Israelis?
What is ‘ Significant circumstantial evidence’….how can anything circumstantial be evidence,
I am ethnically Jewish, with cultural, historical and family ties to Israel. I was utterly horrified by the Hamas attack on 7 October, and my heart goes out to the families of the victims for the terrible pain and anguish they have had to endure.
I knew though, with a sense of impending doom, a sickening pit in my stomach, that the Israeli reaction would be brutal and no less barbaric. And so it has been, and so it goes on, and on, and on. To what end? Of course armed resistance will arise within a persecuted nation. And Israel will only succeed in creating a whole new generation of recruits for Hamas.
I am flabbergasted at the heartless parroting of Israeli and Western justifications for the ongoing persecution and slaughter of innocent civilians, health care workers and children in Gaza.
Thank you, Aayesha, for sharing these anecdotes of the tragedy unfolding in the healthcare sector in Gaza. I only wish that the power brokers of the world, the ruling and occupying classes, would get off their sanctimonious high horses for just a moment and see the suffering that they are inflicting upon their neighbours, their brethren, their fellow human beings.
You are a brave man to be posting this under your real name (assuming this is indeed your real name) as you will now be attacked and accused by the radical Zionists of not being “a real Jew”
I’m surprised we’re getting any information. Israel has, to date, killed almost 200 journalists. Whenever a military targets journos, there is something to hide.
Journalists in a war zone. Journalists who accompanied Hamas on the 7th October. Journalists who are indistinguishable from Hamas fighters because the latter don’t wear uniforms. Journalists who are actively members of Hamas. Just because you’ve got a blog doesn’t make you a journalist and if you work in a war zone you are in danger.
I don’t suppose you’ve actually got any evidence to back up your claim that they’re being targeted by the IDF, do you?
Ah our resident Hamas sympathizers would want good ol facts to get in the way of their woke narrative now would they
Please provide some more information My research shows some 66 journalists have been killed There is no conclusive evidence that any of those were deliberate