On the Destruction and Humanitarianisation of the Health System in Gaza and the Need for a Biopolitical Bioethics

Bibliographic Data

ID21504693
AuthorsMohammad Salaymeh (0009-0000-1039-1242, Médecins Sans Frontières Palestine), Arianne Shahvisi (0000-0002-9347-7566, Brighton and Sussex Medical School United Kingdom, corresponding author), Sohail Jannesari (0000-0001-7868-2871, Imperial College London United Kingdom)
Year2026
Publication date2026-06-22
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueBioethics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0269-9702 • E-ISSN: 1467-8519
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/bioe.70118
PMID42329156
OpenAlexW7165540469
LanguageEN
References cited45

This paper examines Israel's destruction and ‘humanitarianisation’ of Palestinian health systems, arguing that this should be understood as an instance of ‘necropolitics,’ as conceived by Achille Mbembe. We review the extensive, long‐term destruction of health systems in Palestine before 7 October 2023 and the catastrophic acceleration of that destruction in Gaza in the years since. We show that this process is central to Israel's project of limiting Palestinian life to what Mbembe calls a ‘death world’, a space where power is exercised through the systematic exposure of a population to death, and that it serves the security and economic agendas of Israel and its allies. By reducing Palestinians to death‐like living conditions through the destruction and subsequent humanitarianisation of health infrastructure, Israel optimises its control over the remaining population of Gaza. We argue that necropolitics, and biopolitics more generally, are vital yet underused tools in bioethics, without which situations of extreme oppression cannot be adequately theorised

Bioethics · Biopower · Limiting · Oppression · Palestine · Population · Public health · Health and Conflict Studies · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Torture, Ethics, and Law

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