Thursday, May 7, 2026
6:00 PM
The Jerusalem Fund
2425 Virginia Ave NW
Washington, DC 20037
The Jerusalem Fund invites you to a public lecture by Layth Malhis on his recent Al-Shabaka policy brief, De-Healthification: Israel’s Engineered Collapse of Palestinian Life.
Malhis’s work examines the destruction of healthcare in Palestine through a long historical lens. He traces how hospitals, clinics, medical workers, patients, supplies, movement, infrastructure, and the basic conditions of health have been governed and obstructed across different periods of Palestinian history. His concept of “de-healthification” names this systematic degradation and weaponization of the conditions that make health possible.
The lecture will move from the occupation and neglect of Palestinian healthcare after 1967, to the weaponization of care during the First Intifada, the deepening dependency of the Oslo period, the siege of Gaza, and the current destruction of Gaza’s health system. In doing so, it will place the present catastrophe within a longer history of colonial rule over Palestinian life, movement, medicine, and survival.
This subject speaks directly to the work of The Jerusalem Fund. Through the Palestine Center, we create space in Washington for historically grounded discussion of Palestine, U.S. policy, and the structures shaping Palestinian life. Through our humanitarian work, including the Palestine Diabetes Institute, we also remain connected to questions of health, medical care, and daily survival in Palestine.
Layth Malhis is Project Manager at the Institute for Palestine Studies-USA and a researcher with the Documenting the Targeting and Destruction of the Health Sector in Gaza Database. His work focuses on settler colonialism, the history of medicine and health in Palestine, and the political structures that shape Palestinian life under occupation and siege.
We hope you will join us for this timely and important lecture.
Register here: De-Healthification: Israel’s Engineered Collapse of Palestinian Life
Read Layth Malhis’s article here: De-Healthification: Israel’s Engineered Collapse of Palestinian Life | Al-Shabaka
