Hospitals and health workers under fire

You will have seen the images: the maternity hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, in 2022-its exterior ripped away, wards reduced to rubble, wounded pregnant women and newborns carried from the debris.A year later, Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City after a major explosion-the burnt-out cars, blown windows, and bodies of blast victims laid beneath hastily constructed tents.These scenes have renewed calls to protect medical facilities in conflict zones.If such images feel almost normal now, that's because they are.This week The BMJ uses infographics and data to show how attacks on healthcare have become a deliberate strategy of war (doi:10.1136/bmj.r2153). 1 From 2020 to 2024 the number of these attacks tripled, as combatants increasingly used highly explosive weapons-missiles, rockets, bombs-without distinguishing between military and civilian targets.Conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza have driven this escalation, but it is global, with clusters in Myanmar and sub-Saharan Africa.