Gaza, MINA – At least 160 Palestinian health workers, including more than 20 doctors, remain in Israeli custody, raising serious concerns about their safety and well-being, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), Palestine Chronicle reported.
Healthcare Workers Watch (HWW), a Palestinian medical NGO, reports that 162 health workers remain detained, among them some of Gaza’s most senior doctors. In addition, 24 others are still missing after being taken from hospitals during the war.
Muath Alser, director of HWW, condemned the mass detention of doctors, nurses and paramedics as a violation of international law, and warned that it was having a devastating impact on Gaza’s crumbling healthcare system.
“Israel’s targeting of healthcare workers in this manner is having a devastating impact on the provision of medical care to Palestinians,” Alser told the Guardian, adding that the detentions had led to “countless preventable deaths and the effective eradication of entire medical specialties.”
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The WHO has confirmed that 297 health workers from Gaza have been detained since the Israeli war began but has not provided an updated figure for those still in detention.
In addition, HWW estimates that 339 medical personnel have been arrested by Israeli forces.
Testimonies from released detainees have described systematic torture in Israeli prisons. Dr Mohammed Abu Selmia, director of Al-Shifa Hospital, was held for seven months before being released without charge.
Speaking to the Guardian, he described extreme mistreatment, including beatings, starvation and inhumane conditions.
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“I was beaten so badly I couldn’t walk,” Abu Selmia said. “There was little to no food, no sanitation, no toilets. I saw people dying there.”
Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, was among those detained in December. His lawyer, who recently visited him in Israel’s Ofer Prison, reported that Abu Safiya had been tortured and denied medical care.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has called for the immediate release of arbitrarily detained medical workers, condemning their treatment as “enforced disappearances, torture and other ill-treatment.” []
Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)
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