Delayed, denied, deprived: The collective punishment of Palestinian patients in Gaza in the context of Israel's 15-year blockade

This report presents an overview of the right to health in Gaza after 15 years of blockade and closure, and one year on from Israel's devastating offensive in May 2021, with a focus on the impacts of Israel’s movement restrictions on patients.

This position paper describes how systematic discrimination and the fragmentation of the Palestinian people by Israel present a fundamental challenge to Palestinians’ rights to health and dignity, and inhibit the delivery and development of a Palestinian healthcare system.

It exposes how this has resulted in stark health inequalities between Palestinians and Israelis, which have accelerated as a result of recent military offensives and the COVID-19 pandemic.

This briefing draws on interviews with healthcare workers in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) to examine how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted their wellbeing and mental health.

Our research illustrates the way in which psychological distress experienced by Palestinian health workers is deeply intertwined with social, economic and political factors. Interviewees reported that they felt uncertain and unprepared throughout the pandemic, experiencing fear, anxiety, and concerns regarding their own safety and that of their families. The hardships faced when responding to the pandemic were particularly compounded by the indignities and abuses of living and working under occupation and blockade.

MAP has released a position paper calling for rapid, comprehensive and equitable access to vaccines in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt).

While Israel is rolling out one of the fastest vaccination programmes in the world, almost five million Palestinians living under its 53-year military occupation are being left behind. MAP’s position paper provides an overview of the dire COVID-19 context in Palestine; an analysis of the international legal responsibilities of Israel, the Palestinian authorities and international community with regards to Palestinian access to COVID-19 vaccines; and recommendations for action from governments like the UK to address the situation.

A new briefing by MAP, Al-Haq and the Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Centre, exposes how systematic neglect and de-development of Palestinian healthcare has left Palestinian communities in East Jerusalem extremely vulnerable to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic.

The joint paper highlights how Israel’s discriminatory response to COVID-19 in East Jerusalem, coupled with long-standing failures to fulfil fundamental human rights, has compounded Palestinians’ susceptibility to the pandemic.

In 2015, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, MAP and Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights published a report on grave attacks on healthcare personnel and facilities during the 2014 military offensive on Gaza.

Six years on from the offensive, there have been no criminal charges, prosecutions or convictions for these and other well-documented alleged serious violations. In the new report, Chronic Impunity: Gaza’s Health Sector Under Repeated Attack, we provide updates to six emblematic cases of attacks on healthcare in 2014 and highlight how Israel’s military investigations have uniformly failed to provide legal accountability for perpetrators and justice for victims.

Timed to mark the 70th anniversary of the Nakba, Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) has released a new report which illustrates how perpetual displacement and marginalisation has created a decades-long humanitarian crisis for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.  

The 16-page report shows not only how dismal socioeconomic conditions impact their health and dignity, but how a chronically under-resourced and jumbled system of healthcare is struggling to deliver adequate services.

MAP’s report calls upon the international community to work with Palestinian-focused health providers, including UNRWA, to ensure healthcare is affordable, appropriate, sustainable and comprehensive, while also urgently filling immediate gaps in services.

Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) has released its full report investigating the impact of 50 years of Israel’s military occupation on the health and dignity of Palestinians.

As the occupying power, Israel is obligated under international law to respect the Palestinian people’s rights to self-determination and development.

This report includes the four chapters that have been released before it, which document four essential components of the right to health and illustrate the ways in which they are violated by occupation and blockade. Each theme is set out in its legal context and illustrated with infographics, case studies and recommendations for action. 

Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) has released the fourth in our series of briefings investigating the impact of 50 years of Israel’s military occupation on the health and dignity of Palestinians.

As the occupying power, Israel is obligated under international law to respect the Palestinian people’s rights to self-determination and development.

This latest chapter exposes how Israel’s practices and policies are violating these rights and obstructing the development of the health sector in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) (Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem).

Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) has released the fourth in our series of briefings investigating the impact of 50 years of Israel’s military occupation on the health and dignity of Palestinians.

As the occupying power, Israel is obligated under international law to respect the Palestinian people’s rights to self-determination and development.

This latest chapter exposes how Israel’s practices and policies are violating these rights and obstructing the development of the health sector in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) (Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem).

Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) has released the fourth in our series of briefings investigating the impact of 50 years of Israel’s military occupation on the health and dignity of Palestinians.

As the occupying power, Israel is obligated under international law to respect the Palestinian people’s rights to self-determination and development.

This latest chapter exposes how Israel’s practices and policies are violating these rights and obstructing the development of the health sector in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) (Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem).

Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) has released the second in our series of briefings, Health Under Occupation. 

This second chapter exposes how Palestinian medical facilities and personnel have been placed in harm’s way during repeated Israeli military offensives on Gaza and periods of heightened violence in the West Bank.  

Our briefing highlights a failure to ensure credible investigation, accountability, or redress for attacks on healthcare in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). The UN Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza Conflict has stated that Israel has a “lamentable” record in holding wrongdoers to account. This impunity in turn contributes to the likelihood of further serious violations of international humanitarian law in the oPt and worldwide.

Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) and Physicians for Human Rights – Israel (PHRI) have co-launched the first in a series of briefings exploring how Israel’s occupation affects the health and dignity of Palestinians.

This first chapter exposes how barriers to freedom of movement imposed by Israel are preventing some Palestinian patients from being able to access centres of vital care. These barriers include the bureaucratic control of movement imposed by Israel’s permit regime, and physical barriers of the network of checkpoints which control access into and out of Gaza, the west Bank and East Jerusalem.

The briefing calls on governments like the UK to place pressure on the Government of Israel to remove obstacles to the right to movement which undermine healthcare.

The 2010-2015 parliamentary term saw considerable challenges for Palestinians, including two military operations in Gaza, the escalating conflict in Syria, and the continued expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank. 

This latest report, written with our partner the Council for Arab-British Understanding (Caabu), charts UK Parliament's engagement with issues facing Palestinians during this term, including conflict, occupation and displacement, and how these have continued to be a foreign policy priority for the UK Parliament.

During the 2014 attacks on Gaza, 17 hospitals, 56 primary healthcare facilities and 45 ambulances were damaged or destroyed by Israeli strikes. Furthermore, 511 of the 2,217 Palestinians killed died without ever receiving medical assistance, due to obstruction of ambulances trying to reach the wounded or carry them to hospitals.

This report, written in partnership with the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights (LPHR), highlights the devastating attacks on Gaza’s medical facilities and personnel, and obstruction of medical access, which occurred during the 2014 military offensive on Gaza.