Killing of medical professionals in Gaza – UN Human Rights in Occupied Palestinian Territory

16 July 2025

The UN Human Rights office in OPT condemns the killing medical professionals in Gaza in multiple attacks by the Israeli military. UN Human Rights has recorded at least 10 strikes in less than 2 months, killing at least 10 doctors and 5 nurses. Out of these incidents, 7 involved strikes on residential buildings or tents and killed them along with their families, including children. In one strike, a pregnant woman doctor was killed on the street along with her husband.

In the latest incident, on 14 July, Mr. Majed Salah, a nurse, was killed in a strike on his tent in Khan Younis along with his three daughters, all children. A strike on 5 July on the tent of physician Dr. Khalooq Musa Khafaja in Al Qarara, Khan Younis, killed him along with his 2 daughters and son. On 6 June, a strike on the residential building of the Khader family in North Gaza, killed 5 physicians and 1 nurse from the family. And on 23 May, a strike on the residential building of Dr. Hamdi Al Najjar in southern Khan Younis killed him and 9 of his children. These medical professionals and their families must be presumed to be civilians, and the UN Human Rights office has not received any indication that they or their families were in any way directly participating in hostilities, raising serious concerns regarding possible willful killings or attacks directed at civilians, which would amount to war crimes.

According to the Ministry of Health of the State of Palestine, at least 1,581 health workers have been killed in Gaza since 7 October 2023. Those remaining in Gaza are operating under unprecedented constraints, including facing daily threat of death or injury to themselves or their families, as they struggle for survival – in addition to the destruction of hospitals and absence of medicine and equipment. Such killings in this context further limit or negate the availability of life saving treatment for Palestinians.

These strikes on medical professionals happened in a context where close to 200,000 Palestinians have been either killed or injured, the vast majority civilians and mainly as a result of Israel’s choices of methods and means of warfare, that raise grave concerns of a pattern of violations of international humanitarian law.