Treatable Conditions Go Unaddressed In Gaza's Broken Health System

Bleeding out from moderate shrapnel wounds. Dying from illnesses doctors don’t have time to treat. Going blind waiting for medical evacuation abroad. These are the manifold victims of Israel’s war on Gaza’s health system.

By Mahmoud Mushtaha, +972 Magazine

In recent days, details have emerged about a particularly gruesome Israeli massacre targeting Palestinian medical teams in southern Gaza. On March 23, a team of Red Crescent and Civil Defense personnel were sent on a mission to rescue colleagues who had been targeted earlier in the day in the Rafah governorate. At a certain point, contact with the team was lost, and they were assumed dead.

But it wasn’t until days later, when joint crews from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the Red Crescent, and the Civil Defense gained access to and exhumed the site that the full horror was revealed: zip-tied hands and feet, signs of execution at point-blank range, and bodies mutilated beyond recognition. These were not casualties of crossfire. Israeli forces had executed them in cold blood, before using a bulldozer to bury their crushed vehicles on top of their bodies.

“We’re digging them out in their uniforms, with their gloves on,” Jonathan Whittall of OCHA said in a statement after the mass grave was discovered in Tel Al-Sultan. “One of them had his clothes removed, and another one was beheaded,” Mahmoud Basal, a spokesperson for the Civil Defense, explained.

According to the Gaza Media Office, the Israeli army has killed 1,402 medical workers since October 7, making it one of the deadliest campaigns against health workers in modern history. The targeting of medical personnel is part of a wider assault on Gaza’s health care infrastructure: 34 hospitals have been destroyed and forced out of service, along with the 240 health centers and facilities and 142 ambulances that have also been targeted. The total damage to the health sector is estimated to exceed $3 billion, leaving it utterly incapable of meeting the urgent needs of a population trapped under siege and bombardment.

Over the course of the war, Israeli forces have also raided multiple medical facilities and converted them into military outposts, as documented by a recent Human Rights Watch investigation. Major hospitals including Al-Shifa and Nasser were not only raided but occupied, endangering patients and staff, resulting in the death of patients who were forcibly removed or left without treatment.