Health as a Weapon: Gaza, Syria, and the Wider MENA Region

Join the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies for a lecture by Salma Daoudi, a DPhil candidate in International Relations at the University of Oxford, as she explores the weaponization of health in the MENA region, with a focus on Gaza and Syria.

In this talk, Daoudi will analyze how health, a vital component of human security and a public good, has been weaponized in asymmetric warfare. Drawing on patterns from Gaza and Syria, she will examine how medical infrastructure has been systematically targeted and how violations against healthcare workers and facilities have become normalized.

This lecture will be in the context of the CCAS class Critical, Environmental and Human Security taught by Professor Marwa Daoudy. Dr. Daoudy will moderate the event.

Salma Daoudi is currently a DPhil candidate in International Relations at the University of Oxford, specializing in international security and global health, with a regional focus on the Middle East and North Africa. Her research primarily revolves around the weaponization of health in Syria and its repercussions beyond the locus and temporality of violence. 

Salma is also a Nonresident Fellow at TIMEP and a researcher within the XCEPT local research network on cross-border conflict. She has previously worked as a researcher and policy analyst, focusing predominantly on human (in)security in asymmetric warfare, the security-development nexus, and more broadly MENA geopolitics. 

She graduated in International Studies from Al Akhawayn University, Morocco, and in International Relations and Politics from the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, as a Gates Cambridge Scholar.