Medical Experts Have A Grim New Term For Targeted Attacks On Healthcare In War

A man carries his grandson, wounded in an Israeli strike, at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Sunday, July 6, 2025. Medical experts have come up with a new term to describe deliberate, systematic attacks on health services as acts of war: healthocide. Medical practitioners have called for their fellow medics within the international community to call out this weaponisation of health and healthcare, which they believe undermines international humanitarian law.And silence could suggest complicity, Dr Joelle Abi-Rached and colleagues of the American University of Beirut, Lebanon warned in the open access journal BMJ Global Health.The authors pointed to the suffering seen in Gaza and Lebanon right now as examples of healthocide.They pointed out that since Israel began its military offensive in Gaza on October 8, 2023 – following the Hamas attack the day before – an estimated 217 health workers have been killed by the Israeli Defence Forces.Amid 68 attacks on hospitals, 177 ambulances were damaged and 237 attacks on emergency medical services took place, according to data from Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health.A further 986 medical workers have died since the war began.The authors noted: “Both in Gaza and Lebanon, healthcare facilities have not only been directly targeted, but access to care has also been obstructed, including incidents where ambulances have been prevented from reaching the injured, or deliberately attacked.“What is becoming clear is that healthcare workers and facilities are no longer afforded the protection guaranteed by international humanitarian law.”They called for doctors to speak out, warning: “Medical neutrality is not ‘apolitical’; for us it means standing with humanity, social justice, and health-enabling policies.”The experts also said attacks on healthcare providers have become normalised in recent years – but the ongoing conflicts have seen such strikes evolve into “the deliberate killing and/or destruction of health services and systems for ideological purposes.”They also suggested healthocide could be taking place in El Salvador, Ukraine, Sudan and Syria.Fears that not speaking out about wars, like that seen in Gaza, is akin to complicity have been rising lately.Earlier this month, Tory MP Kit Malthouse warned that foreign secretary David Lammy could “end up at The Hague because of his inaction” over the war.According to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, an estimated 180 people have died so far from famine and malnutrition, including 93 children.A total of 60,933 people in Gaza have been killed since the war began.Back in April, Israel denied deliberately targeting a Palestinian hospital, suggesting it was targeting a “command and control centre used by Hamas” instead.Related...Israel Is Committing Genocide In Gaza, Israeli Human Rights Groups ConcludeTrump Says He Disagrees With Israel's Claim There Is 'No Starvation' In Gaza'Make Or Break': UN Aid Chief's Bleak Warning Over Gaza As Hunger Levels Rise

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