Israel ‘systematically’ targets health care facilities in Gaza, doctors tell UK parliament

The British Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee held a public evidence session to discuss the situation in Gaza with humanitarian aid workers and health professionals who have visited the Strip in recent months, Anadolu reports.

Tanya Haj-Hassan, a pediatric intensive care doctor with the UK-based charity Medical Aid for Palestinians, testified before the committee that Israel has “systematically targeted and destroyed” Gaza’s health-care system.

“At least 1,500 health care workers have been killed to date in Gaza, including several of my former students. I had taught them when they were medical students. And I can tell your viewers right now, these are some of the most dedicated health care workers that I have ever encountered,” Haj-Hassan said.

At the beginning of the session, Committee Chair Emily Thornberry asked the witnesses to provide as much information as possible for the public, “because they won’t see it on the front page of the newspapers in the way that they might have if there hadn’t been the war with Iran.”

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Haj-Hassan agreed, detailing that the Iran-Israel crisis is “the most recent development of turning off the lights on what’s happening in Gaza.”

She reminded them that international journalists and independent investigators have not been allowed into the strip in the last 20 months.

“So humanitarian workers are some of the only independent witnesses on the ground, and we can consistently emerge, sharing harrowing details that are morally and legally sufficient to warrant a response, and we haven’t seen that response,” Haj-Hassan said.

Anna Halford, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) emergency coordinator in Gaza, agreed with Haj-Hassan’s description of “systematic destruction” of Gaza’s health system.

“There’s no other word for it. We witnessed the dismantling of a system. It is impossible to have gone from the number of hospitals, clinics, and primary health care centers to the number that exists now without concluding that this was at least partially, if not entirely, intentional,” Halford said.

MSF is working in three remaining functional hospitals and seven clinics, providing essential healthcare services under challenging conditions, she said.

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