The Right to Health programme in the oPt works to strengthen monitoring of barriers to the right to health, including obstacles to health access and attacks on health care. The programme works with health partners to strengthen a human rights-based approach to health and engages in advocacy at local, national and international levels to promote improved respect, protection and fulfilment of the right to health.

The right to the highest attainable standard of health is a fundamental human right encompassing all elements of life necessary to enjoy good health. It incorporates accessible, available, acceptable and high quality health services as well as meeting needs such as access to adequate food, clean water and housing that are considered underlying determinants of health.

Related links

Monthly oPt referral access reports

Right to Health photo book: Palestinian voices 

WHO video-graphic: the journey of a referral patient from Gaza

Right to health: Crossing barriers to access health in the occupied Palestinian territory 2017 English

Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are the leading cause of death and a major economic and social burden. WHO provides technical and logistic support to the Ministry of Health in the West Bank and Gaza to implement the package of essential noncommunicable disease interventions in primary health care, known as the PEN approach.

WHO provides support to the Ministry in targeting preventive interventions and awareness campaigns for key risk factors for noncommunicable diseases: tobacco control, healthy diet, salt reduction, and physical exercise. For secondary prevention of NCDs, WHO and the Ministry of Health launched an early detection and screening programme in the West Bank. WHO supports the Ministry to build and expand the capacity of health professionals for behavioural change communication. 

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Mental health

Mental health and psychosocial issues represent one of the most significant public health challenges across the occupied Palestinian territory. WHO supported the Ministry of Health in developing the National Mental Health Strategy which aims at integrating mental health services into primary health care, enhancing the emergency response and scaling up community mental health services.

WHO is leading the Building Palestinian resilience: Improving psychosocial and mental health responses to emergency situations project. The project succeeded in integrating mental health services into primary health care facilities at UNRWA and the Ministry of Health clinics in Gaza and the West Bank through the Mental Health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP), and trained almost 600 general practitioners and nurses. In addition, WHO supported the development of mental health emergency response plan for Gaza and trained emergency mental health teams and provided supplies to cover 90% of the Ministry of Health essential list of psychotropic drugs.

WHO also provides support to the development of the Day Care Centre in Gaza Psychiatric Hospital, the Bethlehem psychiatric hospital rehabilitation program, the School Mental Health Programme and counsellors in Gaza and East Jerusalem.

Aggravating social determinants of health, particularly in Gaza, affect the most vulnerable, impacting the health of mothers and babies. The period around childbirth is particularly critical for both mothers and newborns, hence childbirth care is lifesaving.

The overburdened hospitals in Gaza are struggling to provide quality care for newborns and to cope with deteriorating health determinants. WHO and partners (UNICEF, UNFPA, UNRWA, MAP-UK and others) within the framework of the “Every Newborn Action Plan” are promoting and supporting Early Essential Newborn Care (EENC), a package of evidence-based life-saving interventions during delivery and the early newborn period. Adoption of these interventions and elimination of potentially harmful practices can effectively reduce the risk of infection and sepsis, asphyxia and complications for an estimated 45 000 newborn boys and girls in Gaza, including for preterm and low-birth-weight babies.