People's Health Dispatch: Israel is erasing decades of lifesaving medical expertise

This fortnight at the People's Health Dispatch

On July 2, Healthcare Workers Watch warned that Israeli occupation forces have now killed or imprisoned the heads of all hospitals in northern Gaza, including Dr. Marwan Al-Sultan, director of the Indonesian Hospital. “Israel’s lethal targeting of healthcare workers is not only causing a horrific loss of life but also obliterating their decades of lifesaving medical expertise at a time when their skills could not be needed more,” the organization stated. Since October 2023, more than 1,500 medics have been killed by Israeli forces – while Gaza’s health system edges ever closer to collapse.

Hospitals and health centers are intermittently operational, constantly disrupted by renewed forced displacement orders, targeted bombings, and a blockade that continues to starve Gaza’s population of food, water, and medicine. Despite growing pressure from health and human rights organizations around the world, governments, especially in Europe, continue to ignore calls to take meaningful action against Israel’s genocide.

Health workers across the European Union are being ignored on another front as well. Trade unions have recently pointed to over 1 million preventable deaths recorded by the EU’s statistics agency as austerity-related: direct consequences of years of budget cuts, understaffing, and erosion of public health systems. Meanwhile, EU leaders are preparing to allocate billions of euros for military spending.