GAZA / PNN/
Israeli forces have arbitrarily detained Palestinian healthcare workers in Gaza since hostilities began in October 2023, deported them to detention facilities in Israel, and allegedly tortured and ill-treated them, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said today. The detention of healthcare workers in the context of the Israeli military’s repeated attacks on hospitals in Gaza has contributed to the catastrophic degradation of the besieged territory’s healthcare system.
The statement said that released doctors, nurses and paramedics described to Human Rights Watch their mistreatment in Israeli custody, including humiliation, beatings, forced stress positions, prolonged cuffing and blindfolding, and denial of medical care. They also reported torture, including rape and sexual abuse by Israeli forces, denial of medical care, and poor detention conditions for the general detainee population.
“The Israeli government’s mistreatment of Palestinian healthcare workers has continued in the shadows and needs to immediately stop,” said Balkees Jarrah, acting Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The torture and other ill-treatment of doctors, nurses, and paramedics should be thoroughly investigated and appropriately punished, including by the International Criminal Court (ICC).”
From March to June 2024, Human Rights Watch interviewed eight Palestinian healthcare workers who were taken by the Israeli military from Gaza between November and December 2023 and detained without charge for between seven days and five months. Six were detained at work following Israeli sieges of hospitals or during hospital evacuations that they said had been coordinated with the Israeli military. None of the healthcare workers said they were ever informed of the reason for their detention or charged with an offense. Human Rights Watch also spoke with seven people who witnessed Israeli soldiers detaining healthcare workers carrying out their duties.
A surgeon said he was “wearing scrubs and Crocs” when Israeli forces detained him during their siege of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, Gaza, in December. “We were 50 healthcare workers, including nurses and doctors,” he said. “The soldier on the microphone ordered men and boys over 15 years old to evacuate the hospital.... When they took us out of the hospital, they told us to undress and stay in our underwear.”
One paramedic said that at the Sde Teiman detention facility he was suspended from a chain attached to handcuffs, electroshocked, denied medical care for broken ribs caused by beatings, and administered what he believed was a psychoactive drug before interrogations. “It was so degrading, it was unbelievable,” he said. “I was helping people as a paramedic, I never expected something like this.”
Healthcare workers also reported being punished in detention for moving or speaking, and collectively punished if other detainees spoke. “Sometimes if one spoke, they [soldiers] punished the whole warehouse [at Naqab prison], collectively,” one healthcare worker said.
The Gaza Health Ministry reported that Israeli forces have detained at least 310 Palestinian healthcare workers since October 7. Healthcare Workers Watch-Palestine, a nongovernmental organization, documented 259 detentions of healthcare workers and collected 31 accounts describing torture and other abuses by Israeli authorities, including the use of stress positions, deprivation of adequate food and water, threats of sexual violence and rape, and degrading treatment. Healthcare Workers Watch-Palestine helped Human Rights Watch interview released healthcare workers.
The prolonged arbitrary detention and mistreatment of healthcare workers has exacerbated the health crisis in Gaza, Human Rights Watch said. Since October, over 92,000 people in Gaza have been wounded, functional hospitals have fewer than 1,500 inpatient beds, and yet the Israeli authorities have allowed only 35 percent of nearly 14,000 people who requested medical evacuations to leave Gaza, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported on August 5.
The healthcare workers’ accounts are consistent with independent reports, including by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Israeli news media, and rights groups, documenting dozens of detainee accounts of incommunicado detention, beatings, sexual violence, forced confessions, electrocution, and other torture and abuses of Palestinians in Israeli detention.
