As the military conflict between Iran, Israel, and the United States escalates and spreads across the Middle East, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) calls on all parties to comply with international humanitarian law and international human rights law, including by protecting medical personnel and health facilities from attack and ensuring health care can function unimpeded. “We are hearing alarming reports of health care […]
New testimonies from physicians inside the Islamic Republic of Iran, shared with Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), add to mounting evidence from health care professionals about the scale and severity of the recent nationwide crackdown, which many observers describe as the most violent in the country’s recent history, including the 1979 Revolution. “The doctors we’ve heard from are exhausted […]
Recent accounts of escalating conflicts across Ethiopia, including drone strikes, heavy fighting, and extrajudicial killings, risk causing immediate and severe health harms to affected communities, including a recurrence of widespread sexual and reproductive violence, said Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and the Organization for Justice and Accountability in the Horn of Africa (OJAH). Renewed clashes […]
With the four-year mark of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine approaching on February 24, following over a decade of ongoing war, sustained attacks on health care continue driving widespread physical and mental harm across the country. In 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion, attacks on health care became one of the most visible symbols […]
Physicians for Human Rights and the Council for Global Equality filed a lawsuit today in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to compel the U.S. Department of State to comply with the Freedom of Information Act Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and the Council for Global Equality (CGE) filed a […]
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) has submitted an amicus curiae brief before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit challenging a purported “abortion trafficking law” which would prohibit physicians from “intentionally recruiting… a pregnant unemancipated minor … for the purpose of … [c]oncealing an act that would constitute a criminal abortion [or] [o]btaining […]
The Islamic Republic of Iran must immediately stop the persecution, physical harm, and detention of all medical professionals who are reportedly being targeted for treating people injured during the recent protests, said Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) today. “Evidence coming out of Iran points to tens of thousands of protesters killed or injured, many by […]
January 29, 2026
Attacks on Health Care, Excessive Force, Mass Atrocities
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) in the United States (co-publishing with the Global Human Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School [GHRC]) and Physicians for Human Rights -Israel (PHRI) published two independent reports documenting the severe harm to women and children’s health in Gaza since October 7, 2023, when Hamas’ brutal attacks on […]
Israel must urgently allow food, medicine, and aid to reach people in Gaza, notwithstanding the downgrading of food insecurity conditions in Gaza to Level 4 (Emergency) from Level 5 (Catastrophe) by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) today, said Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and the Global Human Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School (GHRC). PHR and GHRC have interviewed scores of clinicians in Gaza […]
U.S. federal law enforcement repeatedly misused rubber bullets, pepper balls, tear gas cannisters, and flash-bang grenades in harmful and dangerous ways against journalists, medics, and peaceful protestors during demonstrations in Los Angeles, California over the summer of 2025, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) argues in a new amicus brief filed in L.A. Press Club v. […]
