In late November, 2025, five human rights organisations petitioned the Israeli High Court of Justice to allow for the evacuation of patients from the Gaza Strip into the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Gaza's health-care infrastructure faces near-total breakdown, with WHO reporting that only 18 of the 36 hospitals in Gaza are partially functioning.1 Essential services, including chemotherapy, intensive care, paediatric care, advanced imaging, and oncological surgery, are almost entirely inaccessible. The situation has been exacerbated by Israel's recent decision to block numerous leading international aid organisations from providing relief in the Gaza Strip on the grounds that they have refused to adhere to newly imposed requirements to list all employees by name to Israeli authorities, which has drawn significant criticism from the humanitarian sector and several of Israel's allies.2,3 According to a UN's press briefing as of mid-December, 2025, 18 500 patients, including 4096 children, are awaiting medical evacuation for treatment of conditions that cannot be treated in Gaza, including paediatric cancer and corrective surgeries.1 The petition is awaiting a High Court hearing and was not signed by the Israeli Medical Association, which argued that the issue is political. Allowing patients' access to medical treatment is a fundamental medical and humanitarian obligation, grounded in the right to health and in professional medical ethics.

Under international humanitarian law, an occupying power has a duty to act “to the fullest extent of the means available to it”, to “ensure the food and medical supplies of the population”, and to “ensur[e] and maintain…[medical] services, public health and hygiene in the occupied territory.”4,5 The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has determined that Israel bears the obligations of an occupying power that are “commensurate with the degree of its effective control” in Gaza.6 The health system in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is funded by the Palestinian Authority. It is designed and committed to care for Palestinian patients at scale, both in response to urgent medical emergencies and as an integrated system capable of providing continuity of care to those who return to Gaza.

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