ICSPR Welcomes the WHO’s Decision to Protect the Health Sector, Facilitate the Entry of Medical Supplies, and Evacuate the Sick and Wounded

Date: 24 May 2025

Press Release
ICSPR Welcomes the WHO’s Decision to Protect the Health Sector, Facilitate the Entry of Medical Supplies, and Evacuate the Sick and Wounded, and Supports All International Efforts Calling for an End to Genocide and the Enforcement of Humanitarian Aid

The International Commission to Support Palestinian Rights (ICSPR) has followed with great interest and appreciation the decision adopted by the World Health Assembly during its 78th session held in Geneva. The resolution, supported by an overwhelming majority of 104 votes, addressed the health conditions in the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.

This resolution, submitted by the Kingdom of Bahrain on behalf of the Arab Group, constitutes an important—albeit limited—step toward alleviating the escalating health and humanitarian suffering endured by the Palestinian people as a result of Israel’s systematic occupation policies. The decision explicitly calls for lifting the blockade and restrictions impeding the entry of medicines and medical supplies, and for guaranteeing the freedom of movement for patients and enabling them to receive necessary treatment. It also emphasizes the need to protect healthcare facilities and workers, strengthen the Palestinian health system, and combat famine, malnutrition, and disease, in addition to providing psychosocial support to those affected by the ongoing occupation and aggression.

While this resolution reflects a near-unanimous international consensus on the need to uphold the Palestinian people’s right to health, ICSPR expresses shock and strong condemnation of the four countries that voted against the resolution: Israel, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Hungary, along with 14 other countries that abstained. Despite the fact that the resolution solely addresses humanitarian and health issues—without holding the occupation legally accountable or issuing any explicit condemnation—its rejection by some countries constitutes an unjustifiable legal and moral stance, placing them in complicit alignment with the occupation in its genocidal crimes and grave violations of international humanitarian law.

ICSPR also welcomes the joint statement issued by 80 countries, which called for respect of international humanitarian law, protection of Palestinian civilians, and an end to all Israeli violations, including genocide and deliberate starvation.

ICSPR further stresses that the deadly blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip, accompanied by deliberate denial of humanitarian aid, has resulted in the starvation of over 2 million people, forming part of a systematic policy of extermination, which constitutes a form of genocide.

ICSPR strongly condemns the fascist and racist statements made by U.S. Republican Congressman Randy Fine, who called for nuclear bombing of Gaza. These statements grossly violate the rules of international humanitarian law, Geneva Conventions, and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, especially when directed at civilians. This amounts to direct incitement and participation in the crime of genocide.

ICSPR also condemns in the strongest terms the international community’s failure to stop the daily massacres and atrocities committed against Palestinian civilians and families. In the last 24 hours alone, nearly 100 Palestinians were killed and 250 injured, most notably in the bombing of the Dardouna family home in Jabalia Al-Balad, where 21 members of the family were killed, and about 50 others—mostly women and children—were injured, with search efforts ongoing for missing persons. Another massacre took place against the Dagmeh family in Khan Yunis, where 15 people were killed.

These crimes bring the death toll of Israel’s genocidal aggression since October 7, 2023, to 53,822 martyrs and 122,382 injured, with around 14,000 still missing under the rubble. Since March 18, 2025, alone, there have been 3,673 martyrs and 10,341 injuries.

ICSPR reaffirms that the Israeli government’s limited entry of 119 aid trucks into southern and central Gaza over the past four days—while denying aid to northern Gaza—is nothing but an attempt to mislead international public opinion. The people of northern Gaza are facing famine and total collapse of the healthcare system and basic infrastructure. The designation of only four aid distribution points—three in Moraj, Rafah, and one south of the Netzarim corridor—is a step aimed at imposing new ground realities to forcibly displace northern residents to the south and confine them in closed ghettos in Rafah. This aligns with a systematic ethnic cleansing plan, as affirmed by Israel’s racist and terrorist statements, the most recent of which was Netanyahu’s admission that the goal of the Israeli aggression is to annihilate and displace Gaza’s population.

Based on the above, ICSPR:

1. Calls on the international community, third-party states, and all free peoples of the world to urgently and seriously act to ensure practical interventions in line with international law, international conventions, UN resolutions, and the measures issued by the International Court of Justice, to stop the genocide and Israeli aggression, and to guarantee the unhindered delivery of humanitarian and medical aid to Gaza residents and ensure international protection for them.

2. Urges the World Health Organization to follow up on the implementation of its resolution on protecting the health sector and ensuring the entry of medicine and medical supplies, by establishing a permanent field committee to monitor and document health violations in the occupied Palestinian territories.

3. Calls for urgent international intervention, particularly from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), to ensure the unrestricted entry of medicines and medical equipment, and to open safe corridors for transferring patients.

4. Demands that Israeli leaders and the occupying state be held accountable before international judicial bodies for their systematic targeting of Gaza’s health system, for the crime of genocide, and for other Israeli crimes committed in the occupied territories.

5. Stresses the need to activate international protection mechanisms for the Palestinian people, including the deployment of medical teams, journalists, and international protection missions to both Gaza and the West Bank.

6. Calls on the international community to issue a clear condemnation of U.S. Congressman Randy Fine’s statement, and to hold him accountable under U.S. law and international treaties for his incitement to commit genocide.

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