GAZA (Palestine Foundation Information Center) Israeli military forces caused deaths and unnecessary suffering of Palestinian patients while occupying hospitals in the Gaza Strip during the current hostilities, amounting to war crimes, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Thursday.
Witnesses at three hospitals told HRW that Israeli forces denied electricity, water, food, and medicines to patients; shot civilians; mistreated health workers; and deliberately destroyed medical facilities and equipment. Unlawful forced evacuations put patients at grave risk and left desperately needed hospitals nonfunctional.
“Israeli forces repeatedly demonstrated deadly cruelty against Palestinian patients in hospitals that they seized,” said Bill Van Esveld, associate children’s rights director at Human Rights Watch. “The Israeli military’s denial of water and electricity left sick and wounded people to die, while soldiers mistreated and forcibly displaced patients and health workers, and damaged and destroyed hospitals.”
Israeli authorities have not announced any investigations into alleged serious violations of international humanitarian law, including apparent war crimes, by Israeli ground forces while in control of these or other hospitals. Unlawful forced evacuations of hospitals knowingly carried out as part of the Israeli government’s policy of forced displacement of Palestinians in Gaza would amount to crimes against humanity.
HRW interviewed nine patients and two healthcare workers present when Israeli forces raided and occupied al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City in November 2023 and again in March 2024; Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia in January 2024; and Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis in February 2024. The Gaza Health Ministry reported that 84 patients, and possibly many more, died from lack of care in the three hospitals at these times, excluding people killed by shelling or gunfire.
Israeli forces occupying hospitals severely interfered with the treatment of wounded and sick patients. Medical workers said Israeli forces denied doctors’ pleas to bring medicine and supplies to patients and blocked access to hospitals and ambulances, leading to the deaths of wounded and chronically ill patients, including children on dialysis.
Ansam al-Sharif, who had been hospitalized after losing her leg in an Israeli airstrike and needed crutches to walk, said Israeli soldiers told patients at Nasser hospital to sleep upstairs but to go downstairs from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. “We stayed there for four days with no food, water, or medicines,” she said. Al-Sharif witnessed the deaths of four older patients during this time.
Israeli forces forcibly evacuated hospitals and put patients, healthcare workers, and displaced people at grave risk. They ordered patients to leave hospitals without assistance, including those on stretchers and in wheelchairs. They only rarely facilitated transfers to other health facilities, which sometimes could not provide care. After Israeli forces evacuated some hospital buildings, they unlawfully burned or destroyed them.
Israeli soldiers committed abuses against patients, healthcare workers, and displaced people at the hospitals. They shot and killed civilians, fired on healthcare workers, and mistreated people in their custody.
Human Rights Watch previously reported on unlawful Israeli attacks on hospitals and ambulances, as well as the arbitrary detention and torture of healthcare workers. By September 2024, only 4 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals had not been damaged or destroyed by Israeli forces, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported, posing a critical threat to the short- and long-term health of the population.
