Gaza’s Health Ministry on Tuesday rejected Israeli accusations that armed individuals or weapons are stored inside medical facilities, calling the claims a smokescreen to distract the world from the genocide unfolding in the Palestinian territory.

The Gaza Ministry of Health has rejected Israeli claims that armed groups or weapons are present inside hospitals and health facilities in the Gaza Strip, warning that such allegations could be used to justify further attacks on the territory’s remaining medical infrastructure.

The statement came hours before the third anniversary of the Al-Aqsa Flood operation, which triggered the Israeli siege that continues to this day.

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In an urgent statement issued on Tuesday, the Ministry said Gaza’s healthcare system is entering its fourth consecutive year of what it described as “systematic medical genocide” and direct targeting of the health sector. It called the repeated allegations about weapons and armed personnel inside hospitals false and misleading.

Health authorities also warned that the misleading accusations are another attempt to manufacture a media justification for military actions and to prepare the ground for attacks on the few facilities still standing.

Hospitals Open to Inspection

The Ministry reaffirmed that hospital doors are completely open so that international and human rights organizations can inspect the premises. Inside, officials said, there are only patients fighting for their lives.

Medical and humanitarian staff work under the most basic conditions and extremely difficult circumstances to provide minimal care amid a severe shortage of medicines and supplies, the Ministry detailed.

The Ministry called on the international community, UN agencies and human rights organizations to intervene immediately to halt further attacks on the health sector. It demanded effective and direct international protection for medical personnel and institutions, and an end a systematic misinformation campaign that could legitimize attacks on patients and health workers.

Health System Collapses

The Israeli disinformation campaign coincides with years of systematic destruction that have brought the collapse of Gaza’s medical infrastructure.

The World Health Organization (W.H.O.) said on September 24 that Gaza’s health system remains under extreme strain, with only 19 of the territory’s 36 hospitals functioning even partially and none fully operational. The agency said essential medicines, diagnostic equipment and fuel remain critically scarce.

The continued Israeli aggression has reduced hospitalization capacity from nearly 4,000 beds to just over 2,600. Some 62% of diagnostic imaging equipment is out of service, and the number of doctors has fallen by almost 35%.

W.H.O. has documented at least 920 attacks on health facilities and staff since October 2023, resulting in more than 1,700 health workers being killed, according to the same update. It stressed that healthcare facilities and workers must be protected under international humanitarian law.

Separately, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Monday that Israel is continuing its genocide in Gaza and is “progressively asphyxiating” the Strip, urging governments to act immediately. The French medical charity said conditions for Palestinians’ survival are being systematically destroyed through sustained violence, a deliberate blockade of essential supplies and the destruction of healthcare and infrastructure.

The Ministry also accused Israel of maintaining a suffocating blockade, restricting the entry of medicines and medical consumables, and obstructing the travel of thousands of wounded and sick patients seeking treatment abroad. Facilities that manage to stay open operate under a suffocating siege. Some 44% of essential life-saving medicines are entirely depleted. The severe shortage affects critical supplies such as anesthesia, insulin, intravenous fluids and chemotherapy treatments, forcing the suspension of vital services including radiotherapy and open-heart surgery.

The crisis places pregnant women, wounded and people with chronic diseases at grave risk. Around 700 kidney patients are affected, along with newborns facing a shrinking supply of available incubators.

The Ministry described the Israeli accusations as part of a broader pattern of fabrication aimed at obscuring what it called genocide and ethnic cleansing in the territory. By inviting inspections, health officials sought to undercut the narrative before any new strike on hospitals could be justified.

As the third anniversary approaches, the contrast between Israeli claims and the reality described by medical staff has sharpened. Hospitals continue to receive the wounded while struggling to secure the most basic supplies, a daily contradiction to the allegation that they harbor fighters rather than the sick.

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