In late December, South Africa filed a complaint with the International Court of Justice alleging that Israel had committed multiple “acts of genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza, including “attacks on Gaza's healthcare system that made life unsustainable.” filed a landmark lawsuit.
The destruction of the medical system is a true act of genocide, especially in besieged areas where more than two million displaced, desperate and hungry people face relentless, indiscriminate shelling and sniper fire. Once a health system is destroyed, it cannot treat injuries, access primary care, or cope with hunger. In other words, it will no longer be able to sustain life.
Although it will likely be several years before the ICJ issues a final judgment on the case against Israel, anyone paying even the slightest attention to the medical situation in the Gaza Strip will know that the Strip is on a scandalous path to complete ethnic cleansing. It is clear that we are progressing.
Since October 7, Israeli forces have blocked essential goods and medical supplies from entering the Strip, bombed hospitals and other medical facilities, killed and kidnapped medical workers, and targeted ambulances. Gaza's only pediatric cancer ward was also attacked and destroyed by Israeli forces.
This sustained and deliberate attack on healthcare in Gaza is nothing short of an ethnic cleansing strategy aimed at killing thousands of Palestinians and causing a massive health crisis that renders the area uninhabitable for survivors. It's hard to see it as something like that.
Since the start of the recent war in Gaza, Israel has carried out more than 400 attacks on medical facilities, including all hospitals in the Gaza Strip, leaving most hospitals inoperable. As of February 13, only 11 of Gaza's 36 hospitals were partially functional, five in the north and six in the south. Hospital bed capacity across Gaza has now been reduced from 3,500 to just 1,400 beds, according to the WHO. In many cases, Israeli authorities deny these hospitals, claiming, without providing any independent and conclusive evidence, that the hospitals are used by Hamas or that there is a “Hamas command center” under their umbrella. tried to justify the attack.
At this point in the conflict, the few partially functioning hospitals can only provide desperately needed trauma care and no treatment for other critical primary care needs, such as chronic diseases.
In addition to attacks on medical facilities, we already know that 374 health workers have been killed, including in targeted assassinations. By late December, the number of health workers killed in Gaza was the total number of health worker deaths recorded in last year and in every other conflict worldwide recorded in a single year since 2016. had already exceeded that. Many medical workers, including doctors, have also been kidnapped. Mohammed Abu Salmiya, director of Al Shifa, Gaza's largest hospital, remains missing.
Ambulances were also attacked in Gaza, with around 120 completely destroyed. There have been many incidents where ambulances have not been able to reach seriously injured patients. In one case, an Al Jazeera journalist injured by Israeli shelling bled to death when the ambulance he was trying to reach was hit by shells. In another incident, Israeli forces bombed a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance that was trying to rescue a six-year-old child who was trapped inside with the bodies of his family members, killing two paramedics on board. It was later revealed that Israeli forces also killed the child they tried to rescue.
Prenatal and postnatal care throughout the Gaza Strip, which is essential for the long-term survival of Palestinians in the Strip, is also extremely limited.
It is estimated that 183 women give birth in Gaza every day, but access to safe pregnancy care depends on access to facilities that can provide antenatal care. Few women are able to do so, and the facilities that still provide maternal care are extremely crowded and lack basic hygiene necessities, fuel, water, anesthetics, medicines, blood products, and other supplies. and is exposed to a situation that is said to be catastrophic. In the absence of fully functioning maternity hospitals, many women are forced to give birth in the few health facilities that are still partially operational. However, these are not intended for maternal care and carry a very high risk of complications for all mothers and babies.
In November 2023, the Al Hiro Hospital, which functioned as a designated maternity hospital, came under Israeli shelling after all other specialized facilities collapsed. A Palestinian doctor reported:[f]Ears are a common symptom for all pregnant women” in Gaza.
The impending famine in Gaza, caused by the near-total siege imposed by Israel on the area since the start of the war, also threatens pregnant women.
Currently, half of pregnant women in Gaza suffer from anemia, and at least 50,000 pregnant women face extreme hunger, affecting not only the current generation living in Gaza but also generations to come. There are also reports that miscarriages are increasing.
Medical workers in Gaza are working under immense stress and hardship, having to perform amputations, C-sections, and other procedures without anesthesia, electricity, or most basic medical supplies. United Nations experts have characterized the war on Gaza's medical system as one that has resulted in the complete destruction of the medical infrastructure.
Presented with all of this and more evidence, the ICJ on January 26 issued a preliminary judgment in the genocide case against Israel, stating that it had found enough disputed evidence to proceed with the case and blocking the action. ordered Israel to take measures to Eliminate genocide in Gaza and provide humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people.
However, despite the ICJ's interim order, Israel's military attacks on the healthcare system continue unabated. Indeed, attacks on remaining medical facilities in Gaza have significantly intensified in recent weeks.
On January 27, just one day after the ICJ issued its interim order, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) issued a statement stating that “critical medical services remain in the midst of heavy fighting and bombing in Khan Yunis/OPT, southern Gaza, Palestine.'' is no longer available.” He collapsed at Nasser Hospital, currently the largest functioning medical facility in the enclave. ”
Since then, the hospital has faced numerous air, land and sea attacks and has been under Israeli siege for several weeks. On February 9, Israeli snipers killed at least 21 displaced civilians as they tried to reach a hospital.
In just over four months, the Israeli military's onslaught on Gaza has left more than 28,000 people dead and more than 60,000 injured. Most of Gaza's more than 2 million residents are now displaced, waiting in flimsy tents and damaged buildings in sub-zero temperatures, fearing another attack. The threat of imminent starvation has been amplified by the decision of some Western countries to cut funding to UNRWA, the United Nations' main agency that provides humanitarian aid and essential services to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
With the remaining health services on the brink of collapse and health workers under constant attack, there is little hope for Palestinian life in Gaza to continue unless the international community takes urgent action.
The evidence is before our eyes – evidence reported by brave Palestinian journalists on the ground, evidence submitted to the ICJ by South African legal teams, and visible every day in social media feeds of videos shared by the people of Gaza. The evidence for this is clear. Gaza is undergoing a sadistic campaign of ethnic cleansing, or genocide, aimed at expelling the indigenous population from the Gaza Strip.
Continued attacks on medical workers in the Gaza Strip are perhaps the most effective element of Israel's relentless campaign to make life unsustainable for Palestinians. Once this war ends, surviving Palestinians could theoretically rebuild their destroyed homes, schools, businesses, and hospitals in a matter of months, but the human capital lost to Israeli bombs and bullets – doctors, surgeons, etc. , paramedics, nurses, professors were killed, and those harmed by Israel's actions will not be replaced for many years. Israel's actions not only inflicted physical and psychological trauma on Palestinians, but also subtly withheld the very resources that could help them heal and rebuild their lives in the wasteland of Palestinian land.
The international community, whose indifference to Israel's violations of international law and crimes against Palestinians created the conditions for this humanitarian catastrophe, needs to take urgent action.
As a first step toward ending Israel's blatant ethnic cleansing efforts and genocide, action must be taken to protect what remains of Gaza's health care system.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.
