Urgent health update: Consequences of war on Gaza, the West Bank/East Jerusalem, and Lebanon - August 15, 2026
Health related literature related to Palestine - Correspondence
Poor response from the Israeli Medical Association
The Lancet
“IMA essentially repeats the Israeli military's justification for targeting health infrastructure in Gaza—despite the lack of evidence and UN human rights experts ‘accusing Israel of deliberately attacking and starving healthcare workers, paramedics and hospitals to wipe out medical care in the besieged enclave’. This stance only reinforces the argument that expulsion from the WMA is urgent and necessary. The WMA, as part of the global health community, cannot tolerate an affiliate that actively justifies the deliberate targeting and killing of its colleagues.”
Peer reviewed Health Related Literature on Palestine
Use the links below to explore our thematic collections of peer-reviewed health-related literature on Palestine. The collections are stored in PubMed to make searching and filtering easier. The collections are updated on a bi-weekly basis and currently include articles published between January 1, 2026 and July August 15, 2026.
Publications from the past two weeks include:
Asbestos, open burning, and cancer risk in Gaza
International Journal of Epidemiology
In this letter to the editor, Fatima Nadeem writes that "in September 2025, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) estimated that there were 61 million tonnes of conflict debris in the Gaza Strip—20 times that of prior Gaza conflicts since 2008. Within Gaza’s refugee camps, debris totalled 4.93 million tonnes, 50,000 tonnes of which may consist of asbestos-containing materials. Crocidolite, the most hazardous asbestos form, has been identified in these structures...Gaza’s exposure profile does not resemble a conventional occupational asbestos scenario. Fuel blockades have driven the widespread open burning of plastic waste and tyres, releasing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), including benzo[a]pyrene—a potent carcinogen. No existing cancer-risk model accounts for simultaneous population-level exposure of this complexity."
Psycho-Oncology
This qualitative study assessed the experiences of adults with cancer in Gaza before and after October 7, 2023. In-depth interviews were conducted between December 2024 and March 2025 with 12 adult cancer patients living in shelters, displacement centers, or tents in Gaza. "Participants reported that even before the war, they experienced delayed diagnosis, fragmented treatment pathways, financial hardship, and limited psychosocial support, although some described positive experiences with functioning hospitals and treatment availability. During the war, participants described severe disruption of medical follow-up, hospital inaccessibility, medication shortages, inability to travel for treatment, irregular or insufficient support, displacement, food insecurity, and worsening physical and psychological burden."
Additional articles can be found in the following collections:
Hospitals, health care, and health infrastructure
Public health and medical workforce
Institutional silence, repression, and complicity
Infectious and communicable disease
You can still access our article summaries for articles published between April 2025 – March 2026 here.