News, blog posts, and event announcements. Other websites are welcome to cross-post this material with attribution and a link to the original.
What's New
08/08/2014
IntraHealth International joins the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition in calling on the government of Israel, Hamas, and armed groups to respect humanitarian law and cease targeting health facilities and health workers in their attacks. We call on all groups to ensure that civilians maintain access to much-needed health care.
08/07/2014
Amnesty International is accusing the Israeli army of making “deliberate” attacks on Gaza health workers. It made the accusations this morning while calling for an immediate investigation into “mounting evidence that the Israel Defence Forces launched apparently deliberate attacks against hospitals and health professionals in Gaza, which have left six medics dead”.
08/04/2014
Pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine have expropriated ambulances to transport able-bodied fighters and threatened medical staff, according to a Human Rights Watch report. The organisation, which has also criticised pro-Kiev forces for using imprecise Grad rockets in civilian areas, found a number of instances of rebels stationing fighters at hospitals, seizing or destroying medical equipment and using ambulances to transport fighters.
08/03/2014
Being a front-line health worker usually isn't controversial. But in Pakistan, it can get you killed. The Taliban went on an offensive against polio immunization in 2012 after it became clear that the CIA used a fake hepatitis vaccination campaign to gather intelligence on Osama bin Laden. Since then, more than 60 polio workers have been gunned down.
08/03/2014
More than three weeks of conflict between Israeli forces and militants in Gaza have left over 1,700 Palestinians and more than 60 Israelis dead, while Gaza's Ministry of Health says more than 9,000 Palestinians are wounded. Gaza's hospitals are struggling to cope with the large number of casualties.
08/02/2014
Weeks of intense fighting has left medical services and facilities in the Gaza Strip “on the verge of collapse,” according to senior United Nations officials in the region who today warned that a health disaster of widespread proportions is rapidly unfolding as the conflict grinds on. “We are now looking at a health and humanitarian disaster”, warned James W. Rawley, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in the occupied Palestinian territory, adding: “The fighting must stop immediately.”
08/02/2014
Overnight Israel punished the town of Rafah, 30 kilometres south of Gaza, relentlessly. It’s where the Israeli soldier Hadar Goldin went missing on Friday after an ambush by Hamas forces. In the past 24 hours, more than 60 people have died there, according to the health ministry. The only acute hospital was evacuated after a shell hit the entrance of its emergency room. At the Shifa hospital in Gaza City doctors are struggling.
08/01/2014
The Philippines began to evacuate 13,000 citizens from Libya as violence continued to rage, AFP reported. The move came after a kidnapped Filipino worker was beheaded and a nurse gang-raped. Libya has warned of a “total collapse” of its health care system, as the security chaos threatens to send into flight many of the foreign workers on whom its hospitals depend.
07/31/2014
We, the undersigned members of the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition, demand that the government of Israel, Hamas, and armed groups respect their obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law to respect and protect health facilities, transports, and personnel, and to make health services available to all people in need of care. The Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition promotes the security of health workers and services threatened by war or civil unrest.
07/31/2014
There is war in Gaza again. At this time, it seems like heavy smoke is covering the area, the media, consciousness, and the entire future. But one thing can be already stated with certainty: the casualties of this war have already paid the price. Its dead have already died; its wounded will go on to contend with the pain and trauma for the rest of their lives. As health and medical professionals, Jews and Arabs, our position is no more moral than that of anyone else, but by dint of our positions and our ongoing work, our point of view is different.