Pearls and Irritations

In December 2023, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng, warned in relation to the situation in Gaza that “the practice of medicine is under attack” and “we are in the darkest time for the right to health in our lifetimes”. More than a year later, and with the killing by Israel of more than 1000 Palestinian health professionals and near total destruction of a whole healthcare system, that catastrophic reality now casts an even greater shadow over humanity.

Israel’s targeting of healthcare in Gaza has become so normalised that each new atrocity against hospitals, their staff, the sick and injured, ambulances and aid deliveries receives fleeting media attention, if any, before it is overtaken by another, and another and another.

On 10 October 2024, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights was explicit about the nature of Israel’s actions. In releasing a new report from the UN commission on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, UN leaders stated that Israeli attacks on healthcare are not accidental. They said: “Israel has perpetrated a concerted policy to destroy Gaza’s healthcare system as part of a broader assault on Gaza, committing war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination with relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities.” Israeli security forces have deliberately killed, detained and tortured medical personnel and targeted medical vehicles. Children, the UN said, have borne the brunt of these attacks, suffering both directly and indirectly from the collapse of the health system.

On 27 December, Northern Gaza’s last operational major health facility, the Kamal Adwan Hospital, was destroyed, and its director, Dr Hussam Abu Safiyeh, detained, reportedly at the Sde Teiman prison that is notorious for its brutality.

We are familiar with the Israeli Government’s claims that hospitals in Gaza are being used for military purposes by Palestinian armed groups. However a further UN report released on 31 December 2024 specifically addressed these claims, stating that “insufficient information has so far been made available to substantiate these allegations, which have remained vague and broad, and in some cases appear contradicted by publicly available information”.

In the face of such catastrophic attacks on one of our most fundamental rights — the right to healthcare — there is a heavy onus on health professionals, tasked with the preservation of human life, to speak out. The implications of what is happening to the people of Gaza are profound – for each and every one of them, and for healthcare globally. When the right to healthcare is violated with utter impunity and on a most grotesque scale, healthcare everywhere is vulnerable.

But what can any of us do or say that matters, when Israel’s friends and allies — including the Australian Government — are guilty to varying degrees of complicity with genocide? We cannot wait for governments to do the right thing. There must be pressure applied at the level of civil society, as the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement has long recognised.

On 30 December, the United Nations special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, implored the global medical community to cut ties with Israel. She tweeted: “I urge medical professionals worldwide to pursue the severance of all ties with Israel as a concrete way to forcefully denounce Israel’s full destruction of the Palestinian healthcare system in Gaza, a critical tool of its ongoing genocide.” She also urged leaders everywhere to demand the release of Dr Safiyeh.

While cutting ties with Israeli organisations can send a powerful message of condemnation of Israeli Government actions, we should also recognise and support those Israeli organisations that vehemently oppose the destruction of Gaza and need our support in doing so. Israeli Physicians for Human Rights is one; it provides courageous leadership in a hostile environment, attempting to protect the rights of the Palestinian people. The barriers to its work are enormous, and they emphasise the critical importance of international pressure on Israel.

A particular IPHR campaign is for adequate medical care to be provided to Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons. IPHR states that, “forced disappearances, torture, and severe violations of human rights, particularly in terms of health, are now inherent in the practices and policies of Israeli security bodies responsible for Palestinians in custody”. Further, it states that not only the Israeli Ministry of Health, but also the Israeli Medical Association, have failed in their duty towards incarcerated Palestinians.

IPHR appeals to medical organisations worldwide to support its efforts, including by condemnation of Israel’s policies of torture, abuse and neglect, and by urging the IMA to act for an end to these practices.

The need for global outrage against the dehumanising of Palestinians and for the protection of their health care — what’s left of it — is abundantly clear. Health professionals, for whom our common humanity is the foundation of everything, have a critical role to play in this.

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