The Systematic Targeting of Healthcare In Palestine: From the British Mandate to the Siege of Gaza

Article by Layth Malhis for the Institute for Palestine Studies examining the targeting of the Palestinian health system as an enduring tool of colonial control, tracing a continuous history from the British Mandate period through the Israeli siege of Gaza. The article develops the concept of the colonial logic of medical control, introducing the term 'de-healthification' to describe the systematic dismantling of health systems as a condition of colonial rule, and documenting how successive colonial authorities have used healthcare access, infrastructure, and personnel as instruments of population management and political control over Palestinians. Essential for researchers working at the intersection of colonial history and public health, as this article provides one of the most historically grounded analyses of the deliberate targeting of Palestinian healthcare infrastructure, situating the War on Gaza's systematic attacks on hospitals within a long colonial genealogy.