West Bank Hospitals Falter as Funding Shortage Hits Staff and Supplies
Hospitals across the occupied West Bank were facing a funding shortage as of October 17, 2026, leaving public facilities short of staff and essential medicines. Al Jazeera reported that the shortfall has forced hospitals and clinics to cut services.
The Palestinian Authority's finances collapsed over the last three years due to reduced international aid and disruptions in Israel's transfers of tax receipts. The Authority funds public health salaries and drug supplies, and the gap has left both under strain.
The pressure is acute in Bethlehem governorate, home to some 320,000 people, where Beit Jala is the only government hospital. The hospital was covering emergency cases only, with staffing reduced to two or three days a week linked to half pay. Its daytime oncology unit is headed by Khaldoun Atwan, and Iyad Dari is an attending physician in its dialysis unit.
Across the West Bank, healthcare staff were receiving only half their salaries, while the Authority could not pay for essential medications. Ministry clinics were operating part-time, with doctors seeing well more than 100 patients a day when open.
Al Jazeera reported that Israel's withholding of tax revenues earmarked for the Palestinian Authority, spearheaded by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, caused the medical supplies crisis in Beit Jala and across the West Bank. Israel was periodically withholding tax revenues even before October 2023, endangering the Palestinian Ministry of Health's coffers. Rights groups have accused Israel for decades of weaponizing withheld Palestinian Authority funds as a means of political pressure, according to AP.
Israel has withheld at least $2.5 billion in funds related to the Palestinian Authority, PBS reported. A rights group warned that Israel's policies are pushing the West Bank healthcare system to collapse.
Health services face other strains. The World Health Organization documented 480 attacks on health care in the West Bank since 7 October 2023, resulting in 16 deaths and 95 injuries, according to WHO. Separately, the World Food Programme said funding shortages forced it to cut its food assistance in the occupied West Bank in half, Reuters reported.
