Health workers now deliberate, not accidental, targets in conflicts: International Council of Nurses Chief

The increasingly deliberate targeting of healthcare workers in modern conflicts – from Gaza to Sudan to Ukraine – is an “unimaginable” trend representing a direct assault on humanitarian law, according to the head of the International Council of Nurses (ICN).

“What the world sees is that those beacons of hope (healthcare workers) are the very ones who appear to be targeted, and not targeted by accident,” Howard Catton, Chief Executive of the ICN, said in an interview with Anadolu.

“This feels as though it’s a deliberate part of various countries’ military strategies to target healthcare facilities and healthcare workers. That seems unimaginable.”

He warned that such attacks – once considered rare and accidental – are increasingly systematic, suggesting a breakdown in the global respect for humanitarian norms.

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“These are unimaginable conditions in which to be trying to provide healthcare,” he said, describing frontline workers operating under the constant threat of death, often without access to the most basic supplies: no medicines, no oxygen, no beds, no surgical tools, not even painkillers.

The ICN Chief cited the recent Israeli air strike on Al-Ahli Hospital in central Gaza as a grim symbol of this emerging pattern.

The hospital, which had become the last functioning healthcare facility in the area, was struck by two Israeli missiles on 13 April. The blasts severely damaged the emergency room, surgical operations unit and the medical oxygen production station, effectively rendering the hospital inoperable.

“We’re deeply concerned about the most recent attack,” Catton said.

Nurses and healthcare workers were already operating under incredibly difficult conditions, having to treat traumatic injuries … with little equipment and the constant threat of further attack … The healthcare system was already on the point of collapse

He emphasized that many Palestinian caregivers in Gaza were treating people from their own communities – friends, neighbours, and relatives – adding a heavy emotional burden to already overwhelming conditions.

What especially alarmed the ICN, he said, was the insufficient time reported as given for evacuation.

“Our understanding is that a warning was given, but it was relatively short – around 20 to 30 minutes,” said Catton.

“International humanitarian law (requires) that any notice must be long enough for people to safely evacuate patients and healthcare workers.”

He further stressed the need to assess proportionality – a core tenet of humanitarian law – when military forces consider striking areas of critical public health infrastructure.

Catton questioned the proportionality of taking out “the last remaining hospital or healthcare facility – to effectively leave no health care at all,” asserting that the hospital should have been protected “as much as possible.”

“We can’t take away the right to health, access to health when there is so much need,” he said.

We have some really very significant questions about attacks on health care, on healthcare workers in Gaza, but around the world as well

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‘A deeply worrying road’

Catton emphasized that the deliberate targeting of healthcare services undermines not only international law, but also fundamental human rights.

He warned that if international institutions fail to thoroughly investigate these incidents and hold perpetrators accountable, future healthcare delivery in conflict zones will be placed at serious risk.

“If we don’t do that, we put in jeopardy the provision of health care in all other conflict zones and in the future as well,” he added.

The ICN chief also criticised the global political and health leadership for remaining largely silent in the face of these attacks.

“At the very time we need them to speak the most, it feels like leaders are the most afraid of what they might say publicly,” he said.

This silence is particularly dangerous, Catton reiterated, at a time when attacks on health workers and facilities “no longer feel like collateral damage.”

“It feels as though health workers (and) health are the target,” he said.

“This is a deeply worrying road … not just for nurses and humanitarian workers, but for us all.”

Catton concluded with a broader call to return to the core values ​​upon which healthcare systems are built – values ​​he says are being actively undermined for political gain.

Undermining healthcare appears to serve some political or strategic calculation, he said, adding: “We all need to bring our decision-makers and our leaders back to the key principles and values ​​that respect and honour healthcare workers.”

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.