Israeli forces have arbitrarily arrested and detained Palestinian healthcare workers since the beginning of the war, further compounding a degradation of healthcare services in the besieged strip, according to HRW. 

The rights watchdog has surveyed released doctors, nurses, and paramedics from March to June 2024, who have all recounted their torture and abuse by Israeli soldiers. 

Those released reported being subjected to humiliation, beatings, forced stress positions, prolonged cuffing and blindfolding, and denial of medical care in addition to accounts of rape and sexual abuse. 

Balkees Jarrah, acting Middle East director at HRW, said “The Israeli government’s mistreatment of Palestinian healthcare workers has continued in the shadows and needs to immediately stop.”

“The torture and other ill-treatment of doctors, nurses, and paramedics should be thoroughly investigated and appropriately punished, including by the International Criminal Court,” she added. 

Interviewed healthcare professionals reported being detained at detention facilities in Israel, including the Sde Teiman military base in the Negev desert and Ashkelon prison.

Others said they were forcibly transferred to the Anatot military base near East Jerusalem and the Ofer detention facility in the occupied West Bank. 

“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 Palestinian surgeon told HRW. 

At least 310 Palestinian healthcare professionals have been detained since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza. 

HRW says that Israel has violated the Geneva Conventions and has committed war crimes in its war on Gaza, citing common article 3 of the Fourth Geneva Conventions of 1949 which states “[p]ersons taking no active part in the hostilities … shall in all circumstances be treated humanely,” and article 49 which prohibits individual forcible transfers within the occupied territory. 

Eyad Abed, 50, a surgeon at the Indonesian Hospital who was detained during a coordinated evacuation of the hospital in November, told HRW “Every minute we were beaten. I mean all over the body, on sensitive areas between the legs, the chest, the back. We were kicked all over the body and the face. They used the front of their boots which had a metal tip, then their weapons. They had lighters: one soldier tried to burn me but burned the person next to me.”