White Coats, Red Floors: Iatrocide as Strategy
The Murder of Medicine in Gaza and the Collapse of International Law
The Israeli regime’s bombing of Al-Ahli Arab Hospital today was not a misfire. It was not “collateral damage.” It was not “fog of war.”
It was deliberate. It was ideological.
And it was the latest chapter in a systematic campaign of iatrocide1—the calculated destruction of healthcare systems, medical institutions, and the very concept of care—used as a genocidal weapon.
On Palm Sunday, the occupation regime chose to bomb the last partially functioning hospital in Gaza City—an Anglican Christian institution that had already been attacked once before. This is not merely an attack on infrastructure. This is the targeting of Palestinian Christians. A religious cleansing aligned with the broader project of indigenous erasure.
Let’s be clear: this is both iatrocide and sectarian genocide.
What is Iatrocide?
Iatrocide, from the Greek iatros (healer) and -cide (to kill), is the destruction of medical systems as a form of genocidal violence.
In Gaza, it includes:
Direct bombardment of hospitals
Execution or abduction of medical workers
Blockade of medicine and fuel
Deliberate targeting of ambulances
Surveillance and punishment of those who treat the wounded
This is not incidental. It is strategic. And it is a war crime under every conceivable international statute.
36 Hospitals Bombed. Read that again.
Here are the hospitals Israel has either fully or partially destroyed:
Al-Shifa Medical Complex
Nasser Medical Complex
Abu Youssef Al-Najjar Hospital
The Indonesian Hospital
Kamal Adwan Hospital
Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital
Beit Hanoun Hospital
Al-Awda Hospital (North Gaza)
Al-Quds Hospital
Abasan (Algerian) Hospital
Al-Hayat Hospital
Al-Helou Hospital
Psychiatric Hospital
Al-Rantisi Hospital
Al-Nasr Children’s Hospital
Al-Durra Hospital
Turkish Friendship Hospital
Eye Hospital
Al-Karama Hospital
Friends of the Patient Hospital
Public Service Hospital
Dar Al-Salam Hospital
Jaffa Hospital
Saint John Hospital
Al-Sahaba Hospital
Specialized Eye Hospital
Hamad Hospital
Haifa Hospital
Al-Wafa Hospital
Mahdi Maternity Hospital
Jordanian Field Hospital
Happy Yemen Hospital
Muslim Specialized Hospital
Al-Amal (Hope) Hospital
Kuwaiti Hospital
Emirati Hospital
That list will grow.
The Fall of International Law
Where is the World Health Organization?
Where is the UN? The ICC? The ICRC?
What we’re witnessing is the total collapse of the post-WWII legal order—the Geneva Conventions, the Responsibility to Protect, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—all gutted and discarded in real time by Western-backed genocide.
The ICJ ruling was ignored.
Humanitarian corridors were bombed.
Medics were executed.
Christian hospitals were shelled on sacred days.
And U.S.-made bombs keep falling.
If international law cannot stop genocide, then it is not law—it is ritual theater, a veil for impunity.
Genocide Has No Neutrality.
This is not a “conflict.” It’s not a “war.”
This is a genocide, and healthcare is its frontline.
Iatrocide in Gaza is not just the murder of doctors and patients.
It is the murder of hope, of healing, of survival itself.
It is the systematic removal of the means of life.
And it will not be forgotten.
I remember when bombing a hospital was a "red line". Little did any of us imagine that all red lines will be dissolved so quickly when it comes to the non-Western people suffering. For me, any pretence of civilisation has well and truly broken down. The world is polarised in a way that it will never be the same again.
36 hospitals, what could be better evidence of unbridled hatred?