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Military violence against hospitals, patients, and health workers has become a common feature of modern war. Israel’s current bombardment of hospitals, ambulances and medical personnel in Gaza is a textbook example of this disturbing trend.

That’s why Writer’s Voice is re-posting our 2019 interview with Leonard Rubenstein about his book, Perilous Medicine.

It’s about the development of international law and conventions to protect health care workers and facilities from military attack — conventions Israel is violating now — and what remains to be done.

The attacks destroy lives. They also destroy the capacity of health systems to tend to those in need. Yet little is being done about this abomination. That’s why Leonard Rubenstein wrote the book Perilous Medicine.

A human rights lawyer who has investigated atrocities against health workers around the world, Rubenstein tells of the dangers health workers face during conflict and the legal, political, and moral struggle to protect them.

Leonard Rubenstein is professor and director of the Program on Human Rights and Health in Conflict at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He founded the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition and is a former president of Physicians for Human Rights.