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Israel's increased military operations in the occupied West Bank in the past year have directly attacked and obstructed health care for Palestinians, against international law, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said.
Since the war in Gaza began in October 2023, there has been a marked increase in reports of attacks on health care in the West Bank, “including attacks on hospitals, destruction of makeshift medical sites in refugee camps, as well as the harassment, detention, injury, and killing of first responders and medical workers by Israeli forces", MSF said in its report, Inflicting Harm and Denying Care.
Between October 7, 2023, and October 7 last year, the World Health Organisation recorded 647 attacks on health care in the West Bank. Those incidents resulted in the deaths of 25 Palestinians, with 120 injured, compared with 91 attacks and no deaths in 2022.
Most of the attacks were on transport to and from medical centres, but hospital compounds have also been attacked. An unarmed boy was shot and killed by Israeli troops on the grounds of the Khalil Suleiman Hospital in Jenin on December 14, 2023, MSF said. A month later, Israeli troops entered a West Bank hospital in disguise and killed three patients in what a UN expert panel said could amount to war crimes. Israel said the men were members of a militant group.
MSF, which provides fuel, water and supplies to hospitals in the West Bank and delivers aid to residents, called for Israel to stop the “disproportionate and lethal use of force”, including violence against healthcare staff, patients and medical centres. It also aims to put pressure on Israel as the occupying force to enable the provision of impartial medical care.
Israel's latest military operation, Iron Wall, launched on January 21, has so far killed at least 50 Palestinians, displaced about 26,000 from the cities of Jenin and Tulkarm and made the Jenin refugee camp “almost uninhabitable”, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
Medical workers and patients in Nablus, Jenin and Tulkarm, cities close to the border with Israel, said they had been under almost constant threat since the war in Gaza began.
“Today, for us Palestinians, the [Palestine Red Crescent Society] vest is not a protection. Nothing can protect us. On the contrary, it puts us in even more danger because it turns us into targets,” an ambulance driver from Nablus told MSF. He said he preferred to travel in private cars, and not carry his work ID.
“Once, my brother was beaten and arrested by Israeli forces because he had a PRCS ID with him," he added.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his troops are in the West Bank to conduct an “extensive and significant” operation to “defeat terrorism”.
Chokehold on access delays treatment
The Israel military presence has also made it difficult for Palestinians to access health care, whether for routine appointments or emergency treatment. Journeys that used to take minutes now take hours, if they are able to be completed at all.
Patients told MSF they had cancelled and delayed crucial treatments, including dialysis, for fear of being killed by Israeli troops while travelling to a medical centre.
According to the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, there were at least 790 obstacles controlling the movement of people across the West Bank, including checkpoints, roadblocks, road gates and earth-mounds, as of June last year.
Israeli troops have also destroyed roads, delaying journeys further, and electrical supply and water systems, affecting the ability of medical centres to provide care once patients arrive, the MSF report found.
Hospitals and medical staff are also protected under international law, which requires they be free from attack or destruction. Checkpoints are allowed, but they should not block the evacuation of the sick and wounded. The International Court of Justice has declared Israel's presence in Palestine to be illegal and called for the occupation to end in July last year.
“Palestinian patients are dying because they simply cannot reach hospitals,” said Brice de le Vingne, MSF emergency co-ordinator. “We're seeing ambulances blocked by Israeli forces at checkpoints while carrying critical patients; medical facilities surrounded and raided during active operations; and healthcare workers subjected to physical violence while trying to save lives.”
A MSF patient at Khalil Suleiman hospital, who lives between Jenin and Tubas, said a journey that usually takes 15 to 20 minutes can take six to eight hours during an Israeli incursion.
“For instance, in February 2024, during an incursion into Jenin camp, it took me 13 hours from when I left Jenin to when I returned home, because ambulances could not move, so they could not take me back home," the patient said. "I had to rely on a brief 30-minute ceasefire window for my brother to drive me home from the hospital … Israeli soldiers don’t care whether or not you are a patient.”
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