“There’s no other word for it. We witnessed the dismantling of a system.”
The British Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee heard on Monday that Israel has “systematically targeted and destroyed” Gaza’s health-care system.
The committee held a public evidence session to discuss the situation in Gaza with humanitarian aid workers and health professionals who have visited the besieged enclave in recent months, the Anadolu news agency reported.
🚨At the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, Dr Tanya Haj-Hassan holds back tears as she recounts how Palestinian children are brought to intensive care units in Gaza with “skin that reeks of the weapons provided by Western nations, including the United Kingdom”. pic.twitter.com/hLu2oJRt0f
— Declassified UK (@declassifiedUK) June 16, 2025
Tanya Haj-Hassan, a pediatric intensive care doctor with the UK-based charity Medical Aid for Palestinians, testified before the committee that Israel has “systematically targeted and destroyed” Gaza’s health-care system.
“At least 1,500 health care workers have been killed to date in Gaza, including several of my former students. I had taught them when they were medical students. And I can tell your viewers right now, these are some of the most dedicated health care workers that I have ever encountered,” Haj-Hassan said.
‘Only Independent Witnesses’
At the beginning of the session, Committee Chair Emily Thornberry asked the witnesses to provide as much information as possible for the public, “because they won’t see it on the front page of the newspapers in the way that they might have if there hadn’t been the war with Iran.”
Haj-Hassan agreed, detailing that the Iran-Israel crisis is “the most recent development of turning off the lights on what’s happening in Gaza.”
“This is the total dismantling and annihilation of Gaza’s population. That’s what we are witness to”.
Rohan Talbot from Medical Aid for Palestinians at the Foreign Affairs Select Committee this afternoon👇 pic.twitter.com/iSVa7gPdT3
— Declassified UK (@declassifiedUK) June 16, 2025
She reminded them that international journalists and independent investigators have not been allowed into the strip in the last 20 months.
“So humanitarian workers are some of the only independent witnesses on the ground, and we can consistently emerge, sharing harrowing details that are morally and legally sufficient to warrant a response, and we haven’t seen that response,” Haj-Hassan said.
Multiple Palestinians were reported killed and others injured, including children, in Israeli airstrikes targeting a populated barracks in the town of Al-Zawayda central Gaza Strip. pic.twitter.com/lFxJIPOQMK
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) June 16, 2025
‘Entirely Intentional’
Anna Halford, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) emergency coordinator in Gaza, agreed with Haj-Hassan’s description of “systematic destruction” of Gaza’s health system.
“There’s no other word for it. We witnessed the dismantling of a system,” Halford said.
Gaza Hospitals Near Collapse Due to Israeli Siege, Total Breakdown of Supplies
“It is impossible to have gone from the number of hospitals, clinics, and primary health care centers to the number that exists now without concluding that this was at least partially, if not entirely, intentional,” she said.
MSF is working in three remaining functional hospitals and seven clinics, providing essential healthcare services under challenging conditions, she said.
Over 55,000 Killed
Since Israel’s reneging on the ceasefire on March 18, it has killed and wounded thousands of Palestinians throughout the Gaza Strip through a bloody and ongoing aerial bombardment.
On October 7, 2023, following a Palestinian Resistance operation in southern Israel, the Israeli military launched a genocidal war against the Palestinians, killing over 55,000, wounding more than 127,000, with over 14,000 still missing.
Eight Palestinians were killed and several others injured in an Israeli airstrike targeting a home in the center of Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/2Z1e6mNvVe
— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) June 15, 2025
Despite habitual condemnation by many countries around the world of the Israeli genocide, little has been done to hold Israel accountable.
Israel is currently under investigation for the crime of genocide by the International Court of Justice, while accused war criminals — including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — are now officially wanted by the International Criminal Court.
The Israeli genocide has been largely defended, supported, and financed by Washington and a few other Western powers.
(Anadolu, PC)
In Parliament: Yes, yes, quite. But, seriously, we absolutely must get to the bottom of Prime Minister Stermer homosexual relation ship with a particular Ukrainian – well – male prostitute. And the PM’s cocaine addiction. Then, certainly, we can, erm, debate that other, erm, issue. That you were referring to.
Doctors are a good source of information (not that UK govrrnment takes any notice) I found Thornbury’s comment about lack of information because of no western journalists highly insulting to the excellent brave Gazan journalists who bring us factual information from the ground at risk to their lives