Principle of medical neutrality threatened as doctors and hospitals deliberately attacked, particularly in Gaza
Targeting medics and hospitals in acts of war should be called “healthocide”, academics have urged, amid an increase in such attacks in recent years.
Health services are increasingly deliberately under attack and medics are facing violence and abuse in conflict zones around the world – in particular in Gaza, but also in Lebanon, Ukraine, Sudan, Syria and El Salvador.
This is despite the longstanding principle under international humanitarian law of medical neutrality, which protects healthcare workers and facilities during armed conflict and civil unrest, enabling them to provide medical care to those in need.
In a commentary published in the British Medical Journal, Dr Joelle Abi-Rached and colleagues of the American University of Beirut, Lebanon wrote: “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.
