Over 160 Gazan Medics Held in Israeli Prisons Amid Reports of Torture: HWW

Occupied Palestine (Quds News Network)- More than 160 healthcare workers from Gaza are held in Israeli prisons amid reports of torture and concerns about their whereabouts and safety.

Healthcare Workers Watch (HWW), a Palestinian medical NGO, said it had confirmed that 162 medical staff remained in Israeli detention, including some of Gaza’s most senior physicians, and a further 24 were missing after being taken from hospitals during the Israeli assault.

Muath Alser, director of HWW, said the detention of large numbers of doctors, nurses, paramedics, and other healthcare workers from Gaza was illegal under international law and was furthering the suffering of civilians by denying them medical expertise and care.

“Israel’s targeting of the healthcare workforce in this manner is having a devastating impact on the provision of healthcare to Palestinians, with extensive suffering, countless preventable deaths, and the effective eradication of whole medical specialties,” said Alser.

297 healthcare workers from Gaza have been abducted by Israeli forces since the assault began in October 2023, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

HWW said its data shows the number is slightly higher and that it has verified that 339 healthcare workers from Gaza have been abducted by the Israeli military.

A lawyer representing Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, whose detention by Israeli forces in December sparked international condemnation, recently said he had been allowed to visit Abu Safiya in detention in Ofer Prison in Ramallah for the first time and that he said he had been tortured, beaten and denied medical treatment.

The Guardian and the Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) have also shared detailed testimony from seven senior doctors who said they were abducted from hospitals, ambulances, and checkpoints in Gaza, illegally transferred across the border into Israeli prisons, and subjected to months of torture, beatings, starvation, and inhumane treatment before being released without charge.

“Frankly, no matter how much I talk about what I experienced in detention, it is only a fraction of what truly happened,” said Dr. Mohammed Abu Selmia, director of al-Shifa Hospital, who was detained for seven months in Israeli prisons before being released without charge.

“I am talking about clubbing, being beaten with rifle butts, and being attacked by dogs. There was little to no food, no personal hygiene, no soap inside the cells, no water, no toilet, no toilet paper … I saw people who were dying there … I was beaten so badly I couldn’t use my legs or walk. No day passes without torture.”

Died in Israeli Detention

Three of Gaza’s most senior doctors are also known to have died in Israeli detention due to torture.

Dr Ziad al-Dalou, an internal medicine physician, died in detention after being arrested by Israeli forces from Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital during the genocide, along with dozens of other health workers, when Israeli forces raided the facility in a two-week-long assault.

In June 2024, it was revealed that Dr. Iyad Rantisi, who was the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital’s maternity department, died “under torture” in Israeli custody after he was detained by invading forces from Gaza in November while traveling from northern Gaza to the south with his family, wearing his scrubs, and adhering to the Israeli-designated “safe corridor”.

Prominent surgeon and professor of orthopedic medicine Dr Adnan al-Bursh was also killed by torture while in Israeli detention. He was arrested in December from al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza.

Israel’s Torture of Palestinians

Former detainees say doctors are singled out for cruel treatment by Israeli forces in detention, where torture and abuse of Palestinian detainees is widespread and systematic.

Israeli authorities have been accused of torturing Palestinian detainees. This includes being handcuffed and shackled 24 hours a day, seven days a week – even while sleeping, eating, and using the restroom. Testimonies also describe regular beatings by guards, extreme overcrowding, humiliation, and inadequate hygiene.

In August 2024, the Israeli rights group B’Tselem accused Israeli occupation authorities of systematically abusing Palestinians in “torture camps”, subjecting them to severe violence and sexual assault.

Its report, titled “Welcome to Hell”, is based on 55 testimonies from former detainees from the Gaza Strip, the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, and citizens of Israel. The overwhelming majority of these detainees were held without trial.

Torture was recorded in Israeli detention facilities, resulting in the deaths of at least 59 known detainees since 7 October 2023.

Among them are at least 38 detainees from Gaza, the highest number in history, making this the “bloodiest stage in the history of the prisoner movement,” according to a joint statement by the Prisoners’ Affairs Authority and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society on Monday.

Israel’s Accusations: “Exaggerated”

The Israeli military has been accused of deliberately destroying Gaza’s health system through constant attacks on hospitals, ambulances, and doctors, including airstrikes, detentions, and denial of medical equipment, since the start of the war in Gaza.

The Israeli military has repeatedly justified operations against medical facilities in Gaza with claims that they were being used by Hamas.

However, Andrew Cayley, a top prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) who is leading the Palestine investigation, said the ICC faced “great difficulty assessing” the level of Hamas fighter’s presence in hospitals “because there are lies being spoken, but that is something we do need to get to the bottom of as a prosecution office”.

He added: “I think that has been grossly exaggerated, but we need to be able to demonstrate very clearly what the level of military presence was, if at all, in these hospitals because I think we’ve been misled about that in the press.”

Hospitals, as well as medical infrastructure and personnel, have specific protections under international humanitarian law. Attacks against them are prohibited, but there are certain circumstances in which medical facilities can lose their protected status if they are used for combat activity.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, has said that to date Israel has failed to substantiate these allegations.