Formal Response to WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus

Regarding the Mischaracterization of the Soroka Military Medical Complex

19 June 2025

The World Health Organization, under the leadership of Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has issued a statement describing a recent Iranian strike as an “attack on Soroka Medical Center,” alleging harm to patients and damage to Israel’s “only major hospital in the south.” This statement is not only factually incorrect, but professionally irresponsible, and in violation of the WHO’s own humanitarian mandate.

It is imperative to correct the record and address the dangerous precedent being set by such misleading claims.

1. Soroka Medical Center is a Militarized Facility

Soroka does not meet the criteria for civilian protection under international humanitarian law. It functions as a military medical hub that regularly treats occupation militants involved in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. This hospital is:

• Co-located with a biological research facility, described by Israel’s own Magen David Adom as a sensitive security site;

• Physically embedded within a larger military-intelligence complex;

• Situated adjacent to C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance) systems, cyber operations units, and digital command infrastructure.

According to Iran’s official military briefing, the target was not Soroka itself, but a military installation connected to thousands of occupation personnel and advanced intelligence infrastructure. The hospital was affected by the blast wave, not directly targeted.

If Soroka had been directly struck, it would have constituted a lawful military target under Article 52(2) of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, which permits targeting facilities “which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action.”

This is the same legal rationale Israel has repeatedly invoked to justify its systematic targeting of every major hospital in Gaza—regardless of the absence of verifiable military use.

2. WHO’s Statement Reflects Double Standards and Institutional Complicity

Dr. Tedros’s statement frames the Soroka incident as a grave humanitarian violation while minimizing or failing to accurately characterize:

• The deliberate, repeated, and comprehensive targeting of Gaza’s entire medical system by Israel;

• The killing of over 500 Palestinian health workers;

• The complete destruction or disabling of nearly all hospitals in Gaza, as documented in WHO’s own internal field reports;

• The over 1,000 attacks on healthcare across the Occupied Palestinian Territory in the past year;

• The documented use of Gaza’s hospitals as kill zones, with patients shot in their beds and medical staff executed or abducted;

• The transformation of aid lines and U.S.-marked distribution points into mass graves, including attacks on clearly identified ambulances and medics.

To characterize an adjacent blast exposure to a militarized compound as a direct attack on a protected civilian hospital—while failing to name the deliberate genocide inflicted on Gaza’s healthcare sector—is a profound abdication of duty and a betrayal of the WHO’s foundational principles.

3. The WHO’s Responsibility and Legal Obligations

As the primary international agency mandated to uphold health and humanitarian integrity in conflict, the WHO is legally and ethically obligated to:

• Accurately distinguish between protected civilian health infrastructure and military medical installations;

• Apply IHL standards consistently, without privileging the narratives of occupying powers;

• Publicly document and respond to systematic violations of health neutrality, particularly when they rise to the level of crimes against humanity;

• Refrain from amplifying disinformation that shields perpetrators of genocide.

By failing to meet these obligations, and by elevating a discredited narrative advanced by the Israeli military, Dr. Tedros has contributed to the whitewashing of war crimes, and undermined the credibility of the institution he leads.

4. Conclusion and Demands

This is not a matter of miscommunication—it is a matter of institutional complicity in genocide denial.

the Genospectra Institute demands:

• An immediate retraction and correction of the WHO’s statement on Soroka;

• A full and transparent investigation into WHO’s suppression or distortion of data related to Gaza’s destroyed healthcare system;

• A public commitment by the WHO to name Israel as the perpetrator of systematic attacks on health infrastructure in Palestine;

• Alignment of future WHO communications with international legal standards, and not with occupation propaganda.

The protection of health systems in war is not a matter of political convenience. It is a legal imperative.

The WHO cannot claim neutrality while lending its platform to a regime actively engaged in the destruction of entire hospitals, the starvation of civilians, and the targeting of medics.

If Soroka’s militarized compound is worth a statement, Gaza’s obliterated hospitals demand an indictment.