GENEVA

Israeli forces are deliberately destroying Gaza's health care system in what amounts to "medicide," UN experts said on Wednesday, accusing Israel of targeting and starving health care workers to wipe out medical 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.