Since the beginning of the genocide, the actions of the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) made clear that its systematic targeting and destruction of the health sector in Gaza is part of a strategy to erase Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by making it uninhabitable. By October 9, 2023 — the third day of the war — the Zionist air force had inflicted severe damage on the Beit Hanoun Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip. This marked the first of a series of direct assaults on healthcare facilities since the beginning of Israel’s genocidal war on October 7, 2023.
On October 14, 2023, the IOF targeted the cancer diagnostics center at al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City and issued evacuation orders to the directors of 22 hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip through threatening phone calls. The staff at these facilities refused to comply, insisting on keeping the health sector operational during the war as a professional, ethical, and national obligation.
The series of intensive attacks on the health sector that followed made it clear that the dismantling and destruction of the entire sector was a central strategic objective for the Israeli regime, aimed at eradicating life in both the present and the future in the Gaza Strip.
The targeting of the health sector was a central pillar for the plan to displace the entire population of the Gaza Strip. Furthermore, Israel’s attacks on all vital infrastructure — extending beyond medical facilities — revealed the intent to establish a war biosphere, aimed at eradicating all forms of life in the Gaza Strip.
Out of 7,000 attacks on healthcare facilities recorded by the World Health Organization globally since 2007, Israel’s assaults since October 7, 2023, already account for more than 15% of the total. There is no precedent for the systematic and repetitive destruction of the health sector inflicted in this genocidal onslaught, which started in the north and swept through each of the Strip’s districts.
This is not to suggest that international protections meant to safeguard healthcare facilities during war have not been deliberately violated by both regular and irregular military groups. Globally, healthcare providers have long warned of the grave consequences for failing to address the increasing frequency with which healthcare facilities have become military targets, most notably in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Ukraine. In Iraq, the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 led to the destruction of 12% of the country’s hospitals and two public health laboratories, following more than a decade of dismantling the health sector due to sanctions and siege imposed on Iraq. In Afghanistan, a 2015 U.S. Army strike on a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz — which killed at least 42 people —- prompted an unprecedented rhetorical response from the highest level of international governance. The United Nations Security Council condemned the use of violence against patients, the injured, and healthcare and humanitarian workers, demanded the application of international law, and emphasized the responsibility of states to hold those responsible for violations of international humanitarian law accountable.
In the Gaza Strip, on the other hand, a review of the timeline of attacks on various hospitals clearly reveals an intent to systematically destroy Palestinian health, not just the health sector. The IOF has employed a consistent method with each hospital: beginning with propaganda claims that the hospital has been militarized by Palestinian resistance groups, followed by threats to hospital administrators and orders to evacuate, while simultaneously targeting hospitals’ perimeters. This is typically followed by direct airstrikes, total sieges, raids, massacres, and destruction. In some cases, the IOF bypassed the siege altogether, opting for immediate destruction of hospitals, as seen with the Beit Hanoun Hospital, the Algerian Hospital, and the International Eye Hospital. The siege-and-destruction model is widespread, most notably exemplified by the siege of al-Shifa Medical Complex, which constitutes nearly a quarter of the hospital capacity in the Gaza Strip. Its subsequent incineration leaves no doubt as to Israel’s intentions with regards to the health sector.
The current systematic destruction of health and its infrastructure in the Gaza Strip is an extension of long-standing policies utilized against Palestine. For instance, the IOF consistently blocks roads leading to healthcare facilities and prevents ambulances and first responders from reaching the injured during every incursion into refugee camps, villages, or towns, which leads directly to a higher death toll.
Similarly, the Second Intifada was marked by innumerable attacks on healthcare personnel, obstruction of their work, and deliberate targeting of their facilities. In every assault on the Gaza Strip, the IOF has consistently targeted hospitals, particularly al-Shifa hospital, against which the Zionist intelligence apparatus has been publishing propaganda against it since 2009. Even earlier, during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the IOF targeted healthcare facilities in Palestinian refugee camps, forcing Palestinian Red Crescent teams to frequently move their equipment from hospitals in the camps to other facilities due to the repeated targeting of hospitals and clinics.
This has compelled Palestinians to develop creative strategies to counter the tactics of the Israeli Occupation. Recently, this has included training community members in Aida and Balata camps, as well as other areas, to treat live bullet injuries in the absence of guaranteed access for first responders.
There is an urgent need to document the targeting and destruction of the health sector in the Gaza Strip for several critical reasons. First, to ensure accurate and comprehensive information is available about the most heinous crime committed against health in Palestinian history— and perhaps in the history of colonialism in general — as a transformative moment with profound historical implications. Second, to support scientific research by providing the necessary data to analyze the tools, methods, impacts, and implications of this systematic targeting and destruction. Third, to gather material that can be used to pursuelegal accountability against Israel and its partners in perpetrating this genocide.
Through this platform, which the Institute for Palestine Studies has been developing since the beginning of 2024, the documentation includes details of the history and targeting of every hospital and primary health center, as well as files on the healthcare personnel who have been murdered, abducted, or disappeared. Additionally, it provides a record of materials published by organizations that are active in the Gaza Strip, allowing researchers and experts to track the most important events related to the destruction of the health sector in the Gaza Strip.
In its first stage, the project to Document the Targeting and Destruction of the Health Sector in the Gaza Strip relies on secondary sources, particularly reports published by the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip, other active organizations, and credible media outlets. Due to the gaps that remain at this stage — stemming from the inevitable unavailability of some information and the continuation of the genocide — the current data represents a foundational resource that we will continuously update as soon as new information becomes available. Once the genocide ends — and if the circumstances permit — the next stage will involve field research with specialists and affected populations in order to fill gaps, update, and verify information. Throughout every stage of this project, researchers and writers will continue to provide written and video content to analyze ongoing events and phenomena, seeking to understand their implications within the framework of the war biosphere. Details of the methodology utilized are also available on dedicated pages within the platform.