Doctors without borders warn of healthcare crisis in West Bank
A boy walks past graffiti depicting a Palestinian fighter at al-Amari camp south of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on March 11, 2025. (AFP Photo)
Violence against Palestinians has sharply increased, and access to healthcare is being systematically obstructed in the occupied West Bank, Doctors Without Borders warned in a new report released last week.
The report, titled “Inflicting Harm and Denying Care,” published on March 21, documents how Israeli military operations, settler violence, and restrictive measures have severely limited access to essential medical services in the region.
“Palestinian patients are dying because they simply cannot reach hospitals,” said Brice de le Vingne, emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders.
“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.”
Based on interviews with 38 patients, medical workers, and volunteers, the report reveals that at least 870 Palestinians were killed and more than 7,100 injured between October 2023 and January 2025.
Palestine healthcare under attack
The World Health Organization recorded 694 attacks on healthcare in the West Bank from October 2023 to December 2024, including direct assaults on hospitals, destruction of clinics, and harassment, detention, injury, or killing of first responders.
One paramedic from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society described a raid on a medical stabilization point in Tubas: “Israeli forces surrounded the stabilization point, closing both entrances, even though it was very clear that this was a medical building.
They ordered all the paramedics to exit. There were around 22 of us. Israeli soldiers shot inside and outside the building, damaging our supplies and the stabilization point.”
The report also highlighted that roadblocks, curfews, and lockdowns imposed by the Israeli military have created nearly insurmountable barriers for patients in remote areas, particularly in Jenin and Nablus.
People with chronic conditions such as kidney disease have missed critical treatments like dialysis because of these restrictions.
Calls for international response
Doctors Without Borders has called for an urgent international response to what they describe as violations of international humanitarian law.
“Protecting medical workers and facilities is not optional; it is a legal obligation under the Geneva Conventions,” de le Vingne emphasized.
In a separate statement about the situation in the northern West Bank, de le Vingne noted, “Israeli forces are preventing access to camps, destroying homes and infrastructure, making it impossible for people to return. The camps have been reduced to rubble and dust.”
According to the organization, Israeli operations followed the January 2025 Gaza cease-fire in the West Bank dubbed the “Iron Wall,” which displaced thousands of Palestinians.
Regional context
The crisis in the West Bank comes amid continuing hostilities in Gaza. The Israeli military resumed heavy strikes on Gaza on March 18 after the collapse of the ceasefire with Hamas that had been in place since Jan. 19.
Since the resumption of attacks, more than 670 Palestinians have been killed—mostly women, children, and the elderly—while over 1,200 others have been injured.
The overall death toll in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, stands at least 50,021 Palestinians, with 113,274 others wounded, according to the report.
