8 June 2023
Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) has contributed to a new report, published by the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition (SHCC), which documents 1,989 attacks and threats against healthcare facilities and personnel across 32 countries and territories in armed conflict and situations of political violence throughout 2022. The reported figure represents the most severe year of attacks against healthcare in the last decade globally.
MAP has been a member of the SHCC since 2015, and contributed to the report’s chapter on attacks on healthcare in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). The report identified 171 incidents of violence against or obstruction of healthcare in the oPt in 2022. In these incidents, 136 health workers were injured – doubling from 61 in 2021 – and patients’ access to healthcare was obstructed at least 60 times.
Many of these incidents happened in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli military and settler violence resulted in 2022 being the deadliest year for Palestinians since the UN began recording data in 2005. This escalation of violence resulted in the temporary closure of health facilities, and healthcare was interrupted during hospital raids. Emergency medical teams were frequently obstructed and attacked by Israeli forces and settlers while trying to treat injured civilians.
During an interview conducted by MAP in January 2023, a Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) paramedic detailed the physical and psychological impact of a 2022 attack by soldiers at a checkpoint when he was trying to provide healthcare services to injured demonstrators. He and his colleague had to be hospitalised and were unable to work for several weeks. He described the consequences of the attack:
“This attack had a significant impact on our mental health. We were shocked and scared. The attack came out of nowhere, without any prior warning. We felt humiliated. If our work as health workers is not respected, if our PRCS vest and ambulance that clearly display the Red Crescent (protection) emblem can be brutally attacked like this, what is left? This had a major scar on my life. I still feel insecure and humiliated.”
“If our work as health workers is not respected, if our vest and ambulance that clearly display the Red Crescent (protection) emblem can be brutally attacked like this, what is left? This had a major scar on my life. I still feel insecure and humiliated.”
The report also describes the barriers to healthcare Palestinians face under Israel’s discriminatory permit system. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 33% of permit applications for patients needing to exit Gaza for treatment elsewhere were delayed or denied past the dates of the appointments, while 62% of applications for their companions were delayed or denied. A 19-month-old baby girl from Khan Yunis in Gaza died in March 2022 after access to lifesaving cardiac surgery was delayed for almost three months.
Furthermore, the increasing regularity of Israeli-imposed closures of Palestinian cities and towns in the West Bank not only hindered patients’ access to hospitals, but also that of health workers to their workplaces. Of the 47 primary healthcare facilities in Nablus, 41 were heavily impacted by a closure of the city, because staff were unable to reach their places of work. Patients with standing appointments for treatments, including dialysis and chemotherapy, experienced disruptions to their treatment, with health workers reporting a 20% drop in patients keeping their appointments.
The report makes a series of recommendations for action that must be taken to end attacks on healthcare across the world including: ending impunity through prioritising prosecutions of attacks on healthcare; strengthening prevention against the obstruction and prevention of the delivery of healthcare; reforming the WHO’s system for collecting and disseminating data on attacks on healthcare; strengthening global, regional and domestic leadership on the protection of healthcare; and supporting health workers through ministries of health, UN member states, donors, and health organisations.
Read the full report ‘Ignoring red lines: Violence against healthcare in conflict in 2022’ here.
Photo: A PRCS health worker in an ambulance in occupied East Jerusalem. (Credit William Parry / MAP).
