U.N. experts on Wednesday denounced Israel for committing "medicide” in Gaza, saying its forces are systematically dismantling the health care system by starving and targeting medical workers to erase vital services in the besieged enclave.
"As human beings and UN experts, we cannot remain silent about the war crimes committed before our eyes in Gaza," Tlaleng Mofokeng, the special rapporteur on the right to health, and Francesca Albanese, the special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory since 1967, said in a statement.
"In addition to bearing witness to an ongoing genocide, we are also bearing witness to a 'medicide,' a sinister component of the intentional creation of conditions calculated to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, which constitutes an act of genocide," they said.
The experts said health workers have been "continuously targeted, detained, tortured and are now, like the rest of the population, being starved." The UN has reported medical staff fainting from hunger, undermining their ability to treat patients.
According to the World Health Organization, from Oct. 7, 2023, to June 11, 2025, there were 735 attacks on health care in Gaza, killing 917 people, injuring 1,411, and damaging 125 health facilities, including 34 hospitals.
"Deliberate attacks on health and care workers, and health facilities, which are gross violations of international humanitarian law, must stop now," they said, urging a ceasefire as "a first step to hold Israel accountable" and prevent "the extermination" of Gaza's population.
Israel is facing mounting condemnation for its genocidal war on Gaza, where it has killed more than 61,700 victims since October 2023.
It is facing growing global condemnation after an airstrike near Gaza’s largest hospital killed six Palestinian journalists – including two veteran Al Jazeera correspondents – in what Gaza authorities and press freedom groups call a calculated attempt to silence reporting ahead of a planned full occupation of Gaza City.
The strike hit a marked press tent late Sunday beside Al-Shifa Hospital in western Gaza City.
The dead included Al Jazeera’s Anas al-Sharif and Mohamed Qraiqea, photojournalists Ibrahim Dahir and Moumin Alaywa, assistant photojournalist Mohammed Noufal, and Sahat news reporter Mohammed Al-Khalidi, who succumbed to his injuries on Monday.