9 May 2025
At least 1,400 healthcare workers have now been killed in Gaza during Israel’s 19-month military assault. These systematic attacks show that Israel is conducting a war on healthcare in Gaza that cannot be allowed to continue, says Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP).
Doctors, nurses, paramedics, and surgeons have been bombed in hospitals, buried under rubble, or deliberately targeted in clearly marked ambulances. The UN Commission of Inquiry has said these attacks amounts to war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination.
Dr Khaled Al-Shawa, a surgeon in Gaza, said: “After 19 months, what I feel most is helplessness. All this time has passed, and yet we still stand in front of patients and we can’t help but watch them die. We live under constant threat. Nowhere is safe. At any moment, we could be targeted. As medical teams, we’ve lost so many. I myself lost my mother, and many other relatives as well.
“The danger surrounding us is immense. My message is the same one we’ve been repeating for more than a year and a half: medical teams who continue to care for patients must be protected. Their safety must be ensured, and the symbols they wear clearly marking them as medical teams must be respected. This is sacred. There must be urgent action to protect medical workers.”
Rohan Talbot, MAP’s Director of Advocacy and Campaigns, said: “Despite being protected under international law, Gaza’s healthcare workers are being erased before the world’s eyes. The evidence is overwhelming and the pattern is unmistakable: Gaza’s health system is being systematically dismantled, making it impossible to sustain Palestinian life in Gaza. This must be the moment where the international community says: enough. If world leaders refuse to act to stop this, they will be complicit in atrocities.”
Israeli military attacks have forced a third of hospitals in Gaza to completely shutdown, while more than half of all functioning health facilities are in areas under forced displacement orders. Entire hospital departments have been reduced to rubble. Patients, including critically ill children, have been forced onto the streets. And healthcare workers – some of the last remaining lifelines for Gaza’s population – are being abducted, detained, and killed.
In March, Israeli forces killed Osama Al-Bali – a paramedic who worked at MAP’s Solidarity Polyclinic in Gaza – along with his wife and their 13-year-old son, as they sheltered in their tent.
The destruction of the health system is being further compounded by Israel’s total blockade of Gaza – now in its 68th consecutive day – cutting off access to food, fuel, and medicine. Hospitals already faced severe shortages of medicines and supplies, but the situation is becoming increasingly catastrophic. MAP’s team have reported that basic hygiene items like soap are extremely scarce across Gaza, including in hospitals. Every day without these supplies puts more lives at risk.
MAP calls on the international community to take immediate action to protect Gaza’s healthcare workers. World leaders must act now to enforce an immediate and permanent ceasefire, an end to all arms sales to Israel, and full accountability for violations of international humanitarian law.
The UK must not be an ally to Israel’s atrocities, and the targeting of healthcare workers must not be allowed to continue with impunity.
Photo: Palestinians, seated on the ground close to a damaged ambulance, take part in Friday Noon prayers in the driveway of the emergency entrance of Nasser Hospital. (Credit: SOPA Images Limited / Alamy Stock Photo).
