Intentional and direct attacks on hospitals are war crimes, according to the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, as the Security Council adopted a resolution demanding an end to attacks on hospitals and medical workers. The unanimous vote comes in the wake of a series of strikes against health facilities and personnel in conflict zones. Our UN Correspondent Liling Tan has more.

This vote was about upholding the rules of engagement when it comes to attacks on healthcare systems in armed conflict that targeting hospitals and medical workers that are neutral parties to a conflict cannot be the new normal. The resolution condemns these kinds of attacks, demands compliance with international laws, and refers to such attacks as war crimes. Hospitals have increasingly come under direct fire in areas of war and conflict. In 2015 alone, the UN has verified 59 attacks against 34 hospitals.

That includes the U.S. strike on the Kunduz Trauma Center in Afghanistan last October a facility operated by Medicins Sans Frontiers or Doctors Without Borders.

Similar attacks have continued into this year. Last Wednesday, airstrikes in the Syrian city of Aleppo destroyed a hospital and killed at least 20 people In January, a hospital in Yemen backed by the MSF was bombed. And it was MSF's president Joanne Liu who delivered an angry and emotional speech to the Security Council on what she described as an epidemic of attacks on health facilities. She called out four of the five permanent Council members for their association with coalitions behind these kinds of attacks NATO in Afghanistan, the Russia-backed Syria-led coalition, and the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, which receives support from the UK, the U.S., and France.

In that light, this unanimous adoption of the resolution is a big step but the resolution doesn't go far enough. The real test, according to Physicians for Human Rights, will be whether the Council will act when states fail to investigate and prosecute attacks on healthcare facilities and workers, by referring violations to the International Criminal Court. Liling Tan, CCTV, New York.