Protecting Healthcare in Armed Conflict: An Urgent Call for Action

On May 4, 2026, the leaders of the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) issued a joint urgent call to action regarding the systemic failure to protect health care in armed conflicts. The statement marks the 10th anniversary of the UN Security Council’s unanimous adoption of Resolution 2286, which was designed to ensure the safety of medical facilities, transport, and personnel during wartime.

Despite the legal framework established a decade ago, the three organizations report that violence against medical services has not diminished and has intensified in many contexts. They characterize the current state of health care in conflict zones not as an achievement of international law, but as a failure of political will.

The joint call emphasizes that the compromise of health care sanctity leads to catastrophic outcomes on the front lines of global crises. These consequences include the destruction of hospitals, the obstruction of ambulances, and the death or injury of doctors, nurses, and patients.

Such attacks result in preventable deaths from treatable wounds and force women to give birth without adequate medical care. The organizations warn that when hospitals and care providers are targeted, it serves as a primary indicator that the norms intended to limit the harm of war are collapsing.

The leaders describe this trend as more than a humanitarian crisis, calling it a crisis of humanity.

The Legal Framework for Medical Protection

Under international humanitarian law (IHL), states have a strict obligation to respect and ensure respect for medical services in all circumstances. This mandate requires states not only to follow these rules themselves but to use their influence to ensure all other parties to a conflict do the same.

The organizations also highlighted World Health Assembly Resolution 65.20, adopted in 2012. This resolution introduced the systematic documentation and reporting of attacks on health care by the WHO to build an evidence base for prevention, and accountability.

The ICRC, WHO, and MSF stated they are prepared to provide medical expertise and operational capacity to help states implement the actionable roadmap originally provided by the UN Secretary-General to accompany Resolution 2286.

Urgent Measures for Implementation

To prevent another decade of deteriorating norms and unjustifiable violence, the joint statement calls upon all states to urgently implement several concrete measures:

• Translate existing commitments into concrete actions to implement Resolution 2286 and promote efforts such as the Global IHL initiative’s work on hospital protection.
• Integrate the protection of health care into the doctrine, rules of engagement, and operational guidance of security and armed forces.
• Review, enact, and strengthen domestic laws specifically designed to protect health care during armed conflicts.
• Allocate necessary financial, technical, and operational resources to promote and protect the provision of health care.
• Use all available diplomatic and political means to influence other parties to conflict, including supported proxies, to comply with obligations.
• Conduct transparent, swift, and impartial investigations into attacks on health care to ensure accountability under applicable legal frameworks.
• Provide regular and transparent reporting on the progress, challenges, and lessons learned in the implementation of Resolution 2286.

The organizations argue that the continued damage to health facilities and the injury of medical workers are not failures of the law itself, but a lack of leadership from world leaders.

The obligation under international humanitarian law (IHL) to “respect and ensure respect…in all circumstances” requires states not only to abide by these rules themselves, but also to use all possible influence to ensure that other states and parties to conflict do the same.Source: Joint call by the President of the ICRC, the Director-General of WHO and the International President of MSF

The joint appeal concludes with a demand for immediate political leadership to end the targeting of medical services, asserting that health care must never be a casualty of war.