UN warns Israeli attacks have pushed Gaza's health system to brink of collapse

Years of Israeli attacks have pushed the health system in the Gaza Strip to the brink of collapse, the UN warned Friday. The UN Human Rights Office in Palestine said in a statement that an Israeli airstrike on Nov. 11 hit a building housing the surgical department at Nasser Medical Complex, killing six Palestinians and injuring around 30 others. The office said Nasser Medical Complex was among the few hospitals still struggling to provide medical services in the besieged enclave.

Three missiles were used in the attack, but only one detonated, it said, warning that the unexploded ordnance posed an additional threat to patients, health workers and civilians. The statement also recalled Israeli attacks on Nasser Medical Complex in August 2025, when three airstrikes killed 22 Palestinians, including five journalists. Citing a 2024 report on repeated Israeli attacks against hospitals in Gaza, the office noted that most of the enclave's hospitals had already been destroyed by that time.

It said the Israeli military had failed to provide sufficient information to independently verify its claims that targeted hospitals, ambulances and health workers had lost their special protection under international law and become legitimate military targets. “Under international humanitarian law, all parties are obliged to protect and respect medical personnel and facilities, including hospitals, which must not be targeted or used for military purposes,” the office said.

An Israeli airstrike on a building at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis on Thursday killed six Palestinians, including a child and a doctor, and injured around 30 others. The attack came amid continued Israeli violations of a ceasefire agreement in Gaza that took effect on Oct. 10, 2025. Since October 2023, Israel's war on Gaza, which has received US support and has been described as genocidal, has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians and wounded over 175,000 others, most of them women and children, while destroying around 90% of the enclave's infrastructure.