Health facilities were destroyed and staff killed in record numbers in conflicts in Gaza, Lebanon, Ukraine, Myanmar and Sudan
Last year saw more than 3,600 attacks on health workers, hospitals and clinics in conflict zones, a record figure reflecting “new levels of horror”, a new report has found.
The total is 15% higher than in 2023 and includes air, missile and drone strikes on hospitals and clinics, as well as the looting and takeover of facilities and arrest and detention of health workers.
More than a third of the attacks took place in Gaza and the West Bank, but there were also hundreds recorded in Ukraine, Lebanon, Myanmar and Sudan.
Leonard Rubenstein, the chair of the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition (SHCC), which authored the report, warned that the rise comes at the same time as “attempts by perpetrators to limit legal protections for healthcare and civilians in war”.