Social Medicine · Published 2026-05-01 · DOI 10.71164/socialmedicine.v19i2.2026.2367
Since October 7, 2023, Israel has decimated the civilian infrastructure in Gaza and devastated the civilian population. Israel’s seizure of over 50% of Palestinian land in Gaza, its ongoing illegal blockade of humanitarian aid, and expanding attacks in the occupied West Bank reflect a shift in Israeli strategy to the near-complete eradication of Palestinian settled society, which has ominous implications for civilian survival, the future of Palestine as a nation-state, and the viability of international human rights law as a meaningful practice. In contrast to other conflict settings, US medical journals and academic institutions have remained overwhelmingly silent in the face of the Israeli invasion of Gaza, which has inflicted death and suffering on Palestinian civilians on a massive scale. In particular the blockade of food and humanitarian aid, and its attempt to bar international humanitarian relief organizations from Gaza, has only offered more credence for the conclusion reached by international humanitarian organizations by 2024, that Israel was committing genocide and using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza. Silence in the medical literature, within medical institutions and associations, as the foundations of the law-based international world order have been undermined, has enabled mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza. Today, Israel applies the lessons of Gaza in a destabilizing war in Iran and Lebanon, targeting healthcare workers, universities, and forcibly displacing over one million people in Lebanon, while promising to make parts of Lebanon look like “Khan Younis,” in a striking normalization of genocide. The medical establishment must apply standards of human rights to all human beings equally, without exception, lest we risk rendering international standards of universal human rights meaningless and our world substantially less safe.
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