Held at gunpoint: Israeli state-backed settler violence is deepening the healthcare crisis in the West Bank

These barriers are not isolated incidents but part of a wider pattern. Attacks by Israeli settlers are now at their highest levels since monitoring began in 2006, with an average of six incidents per day. Since October 2023, there have been at least 987 attacks on healthcare in the West Bank, resulting in deaths, injuries, and damage to hundreds of ambulances.

Movement restrictions further compound the crisis. There are now around 1,000 checkpoints, gates, and roadblocks across the West Bank, isolating communities and severely limiting access to medical care for 3.4 million Palestinians. By December 2025, the annual average number of movement obstacles was 43% higher than the last 20 years. Delays at checkpoints can be life-threatening.

Just this week, a four-month-old Palestinian boy died after Israeli forces at a military checkpoint west of Ramallah prevented his transfer to a hospital.

Earlier this year Dr Jamal Abu Salim, a doctor in the Jordan Valley, reported the case of a four-month-old girl with severe dehydration who died because her family were not allowed through an Israeli military checkpoint to take her to the nearest hospital.

Mobile clinics operated by MAP and its partner, the Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS), provide a lifeline in “Area C” of the West Bank, where Israeli restrictions have prevented the development of permanent health facilities and left many communities dependent on mobile services for essential care. But as Israeli military incursions, movement restrictions like checkpoints, settlement expansion and settler violence intensify, even these services are increasingly delayed and obstructed. This further isolates Palestinians from an already overstretched and fragmented health system and entrenches the apartheid system.

Healthcare workers themselves are increasingly under threat. MAP mobile clinic teams report routine harassment, delays, and intimidation by both settlers and the Israeli military. A healthcare worker with a MAP-supported mobile medical clinic in the Jordan Valley shared the risks they face:

“It has become a weekly occurrence to be stopped and searched at military checkpoints. We spend hours waiting, which means we arrive late and are forced to reduce the care we can provide. This month, an Israeli soldier pointed a gun at me because I covered the car window to block the sunlight. Settlers also come to harass and intimidate us and the families we serve. We live in constant fear and anxiety.”

These escalating attacks are unfolding as the Palestinian healthcare system itself is on the brink of collapse. The withholding of Palestinian tax revenues by Israeli authorities has left the Ministry of Health facing a severe financial crisis, with billions in debt. This has led to staff salary cuts, reduced services, and critical shortages of medicines, including treatments for chronic illnesses and cancer. Thousands of patients are now at risk as essential drugs run out. The lives of more than 4,000 cancer patients are at risk due to medication shortages and tens of thousands of patients have been deprived of access to healthcare.

Limited recent sanctions by Western countries on extremist settler groups have failed to curb the violence or improve conditions on the ground. MAP is calling on the international community to take stronger, more effective action to protect healthcare and prevent the total collapse of the system.

Aseel Baidoun, MAP’s Deputy Director of Advocacy and Campaigns, said: “As state-backed settler violence escalates and movement restrictions tighten, Palestinians are being systematically denied access to healthcare. This is a life-and-death issue unfolding in plain sight."

MAP calls on the UK government to take urgent steps to protect healthcare and address state-backed settlement expansion and settler violence, including:

• Ban all UK trade with illegal Israeli settlements
• Suspend the UK-Israel Trade and Partnership Agreement
• Ensure that those responsible for violations of international law, including Israel’s illegal settlements and attacks on healthcare, are held to account
• Publicly lay out their response and implementation plan for the International Court of Justice’s Advisory of July 2024

[ENDS]

• Since the beginning of 2025, MAP’s mobile clinics have provided healthcare services to over 33,000 Palestinians across 27 communities in Hebron, Qalqilya, Jenin, Nablus, and the Jordan Valley.
• A recent Survation poll commissioned by MAP, Save the Children, and Christian Aid found that 87% of UK Labour Party members support banning trade with illegal settlements and 68% support suspending the UK-Israel trade agreement.

MAP spokespeople, including Aseel Baidoun, Deputy Director of Advocacy and Communications, based in Ramallah, are available for interview on request.

Please contact the press office to arrange at: [email protected] or +44 (0) 203 869 1310.

Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) works for a future where every Palestinian has access to a comprehensive, effective and locally-led system of healthcare, and the full realisation of their rights to health and dignity. We work in the occupied Palestinian territory and in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.