One Year of Israel’s War on Gaza’s Health System

After a year of relentless bombardment, Gaza’s healthcare system lies in ruins, and the warnings Palestinians have issued for decades are being confirmed: hospitals, clinics, and health workers are deliberate targets of Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). What was once a systematic campaign against healthcare has escalated into an all-out assault, resulting in the decimation of most of the infrastructure. As the one-year anniversary of this ongoing genocide approached, Israeli forces continued their siege on northern Gaza, intensifying their attacks on health facilities.

Three hospitals still barely functioning in the area — including Al-Awda and Kamal Adwan — were just issued so-called “evacuation orders,” which, as pointed out by Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), are nothing short of forced removal orders. Kamal Adwan’s director, Hussam Abu Safiya, stressed the impossible position the hospital faced soon after the orders were issued. With critically injured children in their care, no means to safely evacuate them, and no other facility able to accept them, health staff are faced with the excruciating decision of either abandoning their patients or staying at the risk of their own lives.

“In between the constant bombardment occurring on the hospital and the surrounding buildings, the healthcare staff have become terrorized to a point where they are struggling to do their jobs,” Abu Safiya stated. Their situation is similar to that faced in other health facilities. Around the same time Abu Safiya recorded his statement, medics in Al-Awda were also issued forced removal orders—for the third time in a year—says Matilde De Cooman from Viva Salud, a Belgian organization partnering with the hospital.

The risks health workers face are all too real. Israeli forces have systematically besieged and destroyed healthcare infrastructure over the past 12 months, including Gaza’s largest hospitals, such as Al-Shifa. Under the pretext of searching for resistance fighters, the IOF raided operating rooms, destroyed medical equipment, and abducted patients and medical staff. In the aftermath of the attacks, civil defense teams discovered seven mass graves containing 520 bodies on hospital grounds.

Over 1,000 health workers have been killed since the genocide began, with hundreds more kidnapped and held in Israeli concentration camps. Those who have been released share harrowing accounts of torture: shackles, electric shocks, broken limbs, and sexual violence. Families of those still missing, like Dr. Ahmed Muhanna, the director of Al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza, are not granted any official information about prisoners’ conditions. Dr. Muhanna was abducted in December 2023. Since then, no official word has emerged about his mental or physical condition, says De Cooman.

International campaigns to secure the release of Dr. Muhanna and other abducted health workers are ongoing, though disturbing reports of their treatment in Israeli camps have sparked both outrage and fear about what the future holds. Despite these developments, Gaza’s health workers remain resolute, refusing to abandon their patients. Their unwavering commitment, sumud (steadfastness), has been lauded by global health workers since the beginning of the genocide. Operating without pay or essential supplies due to the blockade, they have continued their work tirelessly since last October. “Even with Dr. Muhanna’s fate in mind, Al-Awda’s operating director, Mohammed Salha, never once considered abandoning the hospital,” says De Cooman. “As long as there is even one person left in the area, the hospital will remain open and stand by its people.”

The health suffering in Gaza extends far beyond the hospitals. With more than two million people pushed into poverty by the attacks and the aid blockade, food and clean water are scarce. Recent reports reveal that 35% of children and 40% of pregnant or breastfeeding women in Gaza are surviving on just one type of food. Malnutrition is rampant, and the World Health Organization (WHO) has documented cases of children starving to death as humanitarian aid convoys are blocked at Israeli-controlled checkpoints.

Hunger and disease go hand-in-hand, as the WHO continues to repeat. Gaza is witnessing a hard-to-imagine surge in infectious diseases—respiratory infections, skin diseases, Hepatitis A, and even polio, a virus that had been eradicated decades ago but resurfaced, paralyzing a 10-month-old child. The shortage of basic hygiene products, such as soap and clean water, only adds to the crisis.

The spread of diseases is anything but collateral damage: it is a calculated weapon in Israel’s strategy. As Jewish Voice for Peace remarked, in prisons, “skin diseases are a method of punishment. Prison authorities are allowing scabies to spread by restricting Palestinian inmates’ water supply and depriving them of clean clothes and medical care.”

On top of it all, Gaza’s whole environment is contaminated with asbestos dust raised by the constant bombardment. An estimated 800,000 tonnes of debris in Gaza could contain asbestos particles, as reported by Al Jazeera, raising the prospect of soaring cancer rates in the coming years.

“After a year, the occupying forces continue to practice an unprecedented genocide in modern history. What is particularly painful is the disgusting silence of the international community,” stated Hani Serag, Co-Chair of the People’s Health Movement. “We hope that activists across the world will continue expressing their solidarity to Palestinian people and refuse the barbaric practices of the occupying forces.”

Israeli crimes against healthcare are not confined to Gaza. In less than a month, Israeli forces have killed over 100 health workers in Lebanon and forced the closure of dozens of health centers. The destruction unfolding in Gaza serves as a blueprint for the invasion of Lebanon, raising the question: how long will the West look away while Israel continues its rampage?

People’s Health Dispatch is a fortnightly bulletin published by the People’s Health Movement and Peoples Dispatch. For more articles and subscription to People’s Health Dispatch, click here.