Palestinian healthcare workers in Gaza are on the front lines of the ongoing genocide: under constant airstrikes as Israel carries out mass killings, forced displacement, and deliberate starvation of the Palestinian people, Palestinian healthcare workers are relentlessly defending the right to health – indeed, they are defending the Palestinian people’s right to life itself.

Al-Haq publishes our response to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health regarding the request for submissions on health and care workers. Specifically, Al-Haq shared the following submission highlighting acts committed against Palestinian health and care workers related to their work defending the right to health and related rights in Palestine. The following is a summary of Al-Haq’s submission highlighting Israel’s years-long practice of targeting Palestinian healthcare workers and medical infrastructure, and Israel’s demonstrated pattern of destroying the healthcare system in the Gaza Strip in furtherance of the ongoing genocide. 

Israel has killed at least 1,580 healthcare workers in Gaza between 7 October 2023 and 9 July 2025.[1] Accordingly, Israel has killed five healthcare workers every two days since 7 October 2023, or 16 healthcare workers per week.[2] Israel is deliberately killing and targeting healthcare workers and medical infrastructure in Gaza in furtherance of genocide.[3] Israel has engaged in conduct that includes deliberately targeting, detaining, torturing, and killing healthcare workers owing to their membership in the group as Palestinians primarily, and healthcare workers secondarily, indicating that Israel is perpetrating the crime of genocide against Palestinians generally, and healthcare workers specifically. Healthcare workers who were released from Israeli custody have testified that they were subjected to torture, ill treatment, deprivation of food and water, threats of rape and sexual violence, and degrading treatment while in Israeli detention.[4] At least four Palestinian healthcare workers were killed while being held in Israeli custody.[5]

It is important to note that Israel’s deliberate targeting and killing of Palestinian healthcare workers also occurred well before 7 October 2023, demonstrating a years-long practice of targeting Palestinian health. For example, in June 2018, during the Great March of Return protests in Gaza – a nonviolent demonstration that occurred every Friday to call for the realization of the Palestinian people’s inalienable right of return and self-determination, an end to occupation, and a dismantling of the crippling blockade and siege on Gaza – Israeli forces shot and killed 20-year-old volunteer paramedic Razan al-Najjar as she was delivering aid to injured Palestinian demonstrators.[6] Al-Najjar was wearing a first responder uniform, clearly distinguishing her as a protected healthcare worker and visible to any Israeli sniper from a distance, indicating that she was deliberately targeted.[7] A UN Commission of Inquiry report found that Israel likely committed war crimes for the killing and injuring of civilians during the Great March of Return, including children, journalists, and paramedics, among them al-Najjar.[8] No one has ever been held accountable for her killing.

Finally, Israel’s targeting of Palestinian healthcare workers and infrastructure is not limited to the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian healthcare system is impacted as Israel is increasing the intensity of its military operations and forced mass displacement of Palestinians across the West Bank, while expanding illegal settlements throughout. On 30 January 2024, Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) soldiers disguised themselves as doctors and women before infiltrating a hospital in Jenin, killing three Palestinians as they were lying in their hospital beds seeking medical treatment, demonstrating Israel’s violations of international humanitarian law. These violations include the targeting and killing individuals who are protected as they seek medical treatment, and the crime of perfidy by feigning both civilian status and protective emblems of medical workers.[9]

We reiterate with urgency the need for an end to Israel’s ongoing genocide, a total ceasefire, an arms embargo, and for the international community to address Israel’s systematic targeting of healthcare workers, hospitals, and medical units, as part of Israel’s campaign to create conditions in the Gaza Strip to destroy Palestinian life.

Find the full submission and urgent recommendations to the special rapporteur here.

Click here to read the full submission.