UN says Israeli attacks push Gaza health system to brink
The UN office said a Nov. 11 strike on Nasser Medical Complex left unexploded ordnance that threatens patients, health workers and civilians.
Israeli attacks have pushed Gaza's health system to the brink of collapse, the UN Human Rights Office in Palestine warned on Friday in a statement carried by the official Palestinian news agency WAFA.
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.
The office said Nasser is among the few hospitals in the besieged enclave still struggling to provide medical services.
Three missiles were used in that attack, but only one detonated, and the office warned that the unexploded ordnance poses a further threat to patients, health workers and civilians.
The office also recalled Israeli strikes on Nasser in August 2025, when three airstrikes killed 22 Palestinians, including five journalists.
Citing a 2024 report on repeated attacks on hospitals in Gaza, the office noted that most of the enclave's hospitals had already been destroyed by that time.
The office said Israel had not provided enough information to independently verify its claim that targeted hospitals, ambulances and health workers had lost their protection under international law.
"All parties are obliged to protect and respect medical personnel and facilities," the office said.
The latest strike came amid continued Israeli violations of a ceasefire agreement that took effect in October 2025, the statement said.
Since that ceasefire began, Israeli fire has killed 1,622 Palestinians and injured 5,878 others, while the bodies of at least 850 slain Palestinians have been recovered, the statement said.
The office said Israel's military campaign in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, has killed 74,653 Palestinians and injured 176,007 others, and has destroyed 90 percent of the Strip's infrastructure.
Reconstruction costs were estimated at $70 billion, the statement added.
The office also said the Israeli offensive has forced nearly two million people from across Gaza, most of them into the crowded southern city of Rafah near the Egyptian border, in what it called Palestine's largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
