Attacks on healthcare facilities and medical staff have killed at least 900 people and injured more than 1,400 so far this year, the World Health Organization has reported, as conflicts around the world take an escalating toll on medical care.
The WHO has verified more than 900 such attacks in 2026, with the majority occurring in Ukraine, Lebanon and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, according to the agency’s Altaf Musani.
Mr Musani said the attacks were disrupting critical health operations well beyond their immediate toll, citing the response to the Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where the disease has now spread to a sixth region. Twelve attacks on healthcare have been verified in the DRC since the outbreak was declared in May 2026, he said, disrupting surveillance, case investigation, contact tracing, treatment and community engagement efforts, and hampering the wider capacity to detect and contain the disease.
In Gaza, Mr Musani said, all 36 hospitals had sustained damage since war broke out between Hamas and Israel in October 2023, leaving only half still partially functional, alongside a similarly depleted primary healthcare system.
In northwest Syria, meanwhile, 69 attacks had an immediate chilling effect on patients themselves, he said, with outpatient consultations falling by 51% the day after an attack — evidence, he suggested, that many people become too frightened to seek medical help at all.
