TO report published by the Office documents attacks carried out between October 12, 2023 and June 30, 2024, raises serious concerns about Israel's compliance with international law. Medical personnel and hospitals are specifically protected by international humanitarian law, provided that they do not commit – or are not used to commit, outside their humanitarian function – acts harmful to the enemy.
“As if the incessant bombings and the terrible humanitarian situation in Gaza were not enough, The only sanctuary where Palestinians should have felt safe actually became a death trap.,” saying United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk. “The protection of hospitals during war is paramount and must be respected by all parties, at all times.”
The study was published just days after the last major health facility operating in northern Gaza, Kama Adwan Hospital, was decommissioned after a raid by Israeli military forces, leaving the population of northern Gaza Gaza with almost no access to adequate medical care.
Staff and patients were forced to flee or taken into custody, and there were numerous reports of torture and ill-treatment. The director of the hospital was arrested and his fate and whereabouts are unknown.
Airstrikes cause destruction in the area around Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza on October 25, 2024.
Possible war crimes, crimes against humanity.
During the reporting period, there were at least 136 attacks on at least 27 hospitals and 12 other medical facilities, causing significant casualties among doctors, nurses, paramedics and other civilians, and causing significant damage, if not complete destruction, to civil infrastructure. .
The report explains that, in the exceptional circumstances in which medical personnel, ambulances and hospitals lose their special protection for meeting the strict criteria to be considered military objectives, any attack on them must respect the fundamental principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution. . in attack. Failure to comply with any of these principles constitutes a violation of international humanitarian law.
Intentionally directing attacks against hospitals and places of treatment for the sick and wounded, as long as they are not military objectives; intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such, or against individual civilians not directly participating in hostilities, including launching an indiscriminate attack that causes death or injury to civilians; and intentionally launching disproportionate attacks are also war crimes, the report adds.
In certain circumstances, the deliberate destruction of health facilities may constitute a form of collective punishment, which would also constitute a war crime.
The report also notes that several of these acts, if committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population, in furtherance of a state policy or, in the case of a non-state actor, an organization, They can also constitute crimes against humanity..
Are hospitals used for military purposes?
In most cases, Israel alleges that hospitals were being misused for military purposes by Palestinian armed groups, the report states. However, insufficient information has so far been provided to substantiate these allegations, which remain vague and broad and, in some cases, appear contradicted by publicly available information.
If these allegations were verified, serious concerns would arise that Palestinian armed groups were using the presence of civilians to intentionally protect themselves from attack, which would amount to a war crime.
500 medical professionals reported dead and mass graves found
The report finds that the impacts of Israeli military operations in and around hospitals, and associated fighting, extend far beyond the physical structures.
Women, especially pregnant women, have suffered severely. Many women have given birth with minimal or no prenatal and postnatal care, increasing the risk of preventable maternal and infant mortality. The UN Human Rights Office received reports that newborns had died because their mothers could not attend postnatal checkups or reach medical centers to give birth.
The increasingly limited healthcare system prevented many of those who had suffered traumatic injuries from receiving timely and potentially life-saving treatment. As of the end of April 2024, according to the Ministry of Health of the State of Palestine, 77,704 Palestinians were injured. Many injured reportedly died while waiting to be hospitalized or treated. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, by the end of June 2024, more than 500 medical professionals have been killed in Gaza since October 7.
The Israeli military's first major operation against a hospital involved the Al Shifa Medical Complex in November 2023. It raided the facility a second time in March 2024, leaving it in complete ruin on April 1. Following the withdrawal of the Israeli army, three mass graves were reported to have been found at the hospital, from which at least 80 bodies were recovered, raising serious concerns that crimes under international law may have been committed. Some of these bodies were reportedly found with catheters and cannulas still in place, suggesting that they had been patients.
A woman carries the body of a newborn killed in an attack on the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza.
Possible attack on medical staff and patients.
In some of the attacks, the Israeli military likely used both heavy weapons and air-dropped munitions with effects over a wide area, according to the report. An MK 83 munition appears to have been used in the January 10 airstrike outside the Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, Middle Gaza. At least 12 people were reportedly killed, including a journalist and several internally displaced people, and 35 people were injured. The use of explosive weapons with far-reaching effects in a densely populated area raises serious concerns that it may be an indiscriminate attack.
The report finds that another feature of such attacks has been the apparent targeting of people inside hospitals, but that in most of these cases it was difficult to determine attribution. The UN Human Rights Office verified multiple cases of people shot dead at Al Awda Hospital in Jabalya, including a volunteer nurse who was fatally shot in the chest while looking out a window on December 7, 2023.
“It is essential that there be independent, thorough and transparent investigations into all these incidents, and that accountability be held for all violations of international humanitarian and human rights law that have taken place,” Türk said. “All arbitrarily detained medical workers must be released immediately.”
“It must also be a priority for Israel, as the occupying power, to ensure and facilitate access to adequate health care for the Palestinian population, and for future recovery and reconstruction efforts to prioritize the restoration of medical capacity that has been destroyed in the last few years. 14 months of intense conflict.”
