Global Failure to Protect Right to Health in Conflict

Click to expand Image A man stands on the debris at the site of a drug rehabilitation hospital destroyed in what the Taliban said was a Pakistani airstrike on Kabul, Afghanistan, March 17, 2026. © 2026 Sayed Hassib/Reuters (New York) – Ten years after United Nations Security Council Resolution 2286 was adopted to protect health care in armed conflict, attacks on hospitals and healthcare workers continue, Human Rights Watch said today. Resolution 2286, unanimously adopted on May 3, 2016, obligates countries to “prevent and address” attacks on health. A decade later, a new report by the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition (SHCC), an international group of nongovernmental and academic organizations, including Human Rights Watch, found that attacks on health facilities and medical workers continued to occur at an alarming rate. Governments should protect the rule of law by meaningfully preventing unlawful attacks and punishing those responsible. “Resolution 2286 sets out clear obligations to protect healthcare workers and facilities in armed conflict and to adhere to international law,” said Julia Bleckner, senior researcher in the Global Health Initiative at Human Rights Watch. “A decade later, member states have not only failed to meet these obligations but leaders are apparently comfortable flouting laws and norms. Accountability requires more than resolutions. It requires consequences.” Human Rights Watch has produced a web page compiling its work on attacks on health spanning the 10 years since the adoption of the resolution. The SHCC documented 2,546 reported incidents of “attacks on health” in 33 countries in 2025. Of these, 936 involved killing, kidnapping, or arresting health or aid workers, while 790 affected healthcare infrastructure, including hospitals and clinics. The coalition noted that “across all conflict settings, attacks on health care in 2025 caused interconnected system-wide impacts.” The coalition report also found that the majority of attacks were carried out by state forces. On May 7, 2026, UN Secretary-General António Guterres released a report with similar findings, highlighting that “the significant increase in violence against health care since 2016 has been driven by State actors.” On May 19, representatives of UN member states and civil society groups gathered in New York to acknowledge the significant gaps in accountability and renew their commitment to concrete actions to reduce attacks on health care. All governments should take urgent actions to comply with international law and the requirements laid out in Resolution 2286, Human Rights Watch said. This includes improving data collection on attacks on and threats to health care, integrating practical measures to ensure respect for international law into military doctrine and training, expanding domestic law to incorporate legal obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law, and restricting the sale and export of arms to known violators. Governments should regularly report on actions taken to comply with these and other obligations under the law, Human Rights Watch said. Human Rights Watch has documented unlawful attacks on health care in conflict for more than 25 years, demonstrating their acute harm as well as the reverberating impact on human rights long after the conflict has ended. In Syria, the unlawful targeting of health facilities and personnel by the Assad government and Russian forces became a defining feature of the nearly 14-year war. These attacks have had long-lasting negative consequences for the country’s healthcare system, and the road to recovery remains uncertain.In Myanmar, the military junta has obstructed access to lifesaving medical goods and services and decimated the healthcare system since the 2021 coup, particularly in parts of the country controlled by the opposition. Years of unlawful attacks on health care by the military junta impeded emergency efforts to effectively respond to the March 2025 earthquake, which left thousands dead and injured.In Gaza, repeated unlawful attacks on medical facilities and personnel by Israeli authorities resulted in the “complete collapse” of the healthcare system. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza—primarily children—continue to suffer from water-borne illnesses due in large part to the intentional destruction of water and sanitation infrastructure throughout the conflict.In Sudan, the Sudanese Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces have attacked civilian infrastructure crucial to health, including hospitals and water facilities. The warring parties have willfully obstructed aid movement and targeted humanitarian workers. In August 2025, Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) was forced to shut down one of its hospitals in Darfur despite an active cholera outbreak, following an armed assault inside the facility. A March 2026 attack on Al Deain Teaching Hospital in East Darfur killed at least 64 people and injured dozens more. In Ukraine, Russian forces have ramped up attacks on health care, affecting more than 2,665 facilities and personnel. The authorities have also restricted access to health care to coerce residents into accepting Russian passports, as part of an effort to illegally impose Russian law and administrative structures in occupied areas of Ukraine.The United States, Israel, and Iran have struck civilian infrastructure critical to health, including electrical power plants, desalination plants, and bridges. Attacks that amount to disregard for the laws of war will most likely have long-lasting negative health and environmental impacts for civilians, Human Rights Watch said.  International law grants special protected status for hospitals and other medical facilities, healthcare personnel, and medical transportation units, such as ambulances. Health facilities, personnel, and transport units lose their protected status only if they are used outside of their humanitarian function to commit acts harmful to the opposing party. These attacks may still be unlawful if indiscriminate or disproportionate. The law also prohibits attacks on civilian infrastructure critical to the survival of the population, such as electricity and water installations. Human Rights Watch has also reported that attacks of this nature can violate international human rights law, in particular the right to health. Under the law, which applies during times of conflict alongside humanitarian law, states must comply with certain core obligations that represent the minimum essential levels of these rights, noncompliance with which cannot be justified even in times of conflict. Core minimum levels of the right to health include nondiscriminatory access to health facilities, goods, and services; food, shelter, and housing; sanitation and safe, potable water; and essential medicines. “Even in war, the right to health endures,” Bleckner said. “The evidence of attacks on health care in conflict is overwhelming. The only question is whether countries will act or remain silent and allow such attacks to continue with impunity.”