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Between October 2023 and April 2024, more than 30,000 Palestinians were killed, and countless others injured, displaced, and traumatized, in the fifth major Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip since 2006. Recent events, along with the trajectory of events over the past 75 years, demonstrate that using a public health framework could help recognize racism as a structural and social determinant of Palestinian health. Using the principles of health equity, we show how Palestinian health inequities are rooted in settler colonialism and racism, amounting to violence and oppression against Palestinian Arabs as a racialized group, regardless of religion or citizenship. Structural racism should be recognized as a driver of Palestinian health inequities.

Private actors’ involvement in health care financing, provision, and governance contributes to economic inequality. This paper provides an overview of emerging normative trends regarding private actors’ involvement in health care by reviewing and critically analyzing international and regional human rights standards on the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. Specifically, we survey statements from United Nations human rights treaty bodies and recent jurisprudence of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights that discuss private actors’ involvement in health care. We then identify strengths and weaknesses of the current international human rights law framework to address the human rights and inequality impacts of private health care actors, before concluding with a series of recommendations to further develop existing standards.