Hundreds of Palestinian Doctors Go Missing in Israeli Detention
May 27, 2024
Under the headline “Gaza’s Stolen Healers… Hundreds of Palestinian Doctors Disappeared in Israeli Prisons,” Kavitha Chekuru wrote on The Intercept about the arrest and disappearance of doctors in the Gaza Strip amidst the Israeli offensive.
According to the author, in early November, reports began to surface about doctors being arrested and disappearing in northern Gaza. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the Israeli army has detained at least 214 medical workers in Gaza.
In early May, the arrest and torture of medical staff from Gaza made headlines when Israeli authorities announced the death of Adnan Al-Barsh, a renowned surgeon and the head of the Orthopedic Surgery Department at Al-Shifa Hospital.
After his detention in December, officials said Al-Barsh died in April while in Ofer Prison, an Israeli detention facility in the occupied West Bank.
There was also an incident in which the Israeli army sent a handcuffed prisoner to evacuate a hospital and then killed him as he left.
Al-Barsh is one of at least 493 Palestinian medical workers who have been killed in Gaza since October 7, according to the Ministry of Health. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have systematically targeted hospitals from the north to the south of the Strip, claiming that Hamas operates within these facilities—a claim repeatedly denied by Gaza’s medical staff.
This week, Israeli forces launched new attacks on Kamal Adwan Hospital and Al-Awda Hospital in the north. Reports emerged on Wednesday and Thursday about medical staff at Al-Awda Hospital being detained.
Attacks on Hospitals
As ground forces made their way to southern Gaza by the end of the year, attacks on hospitals in the southern city of Khan Younis intensified.
In December, another surgeon, Khaled Hamouda, was working at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza. A month earlier, he had been transferred from the Indonesian Hospital, where he had been practicing as usual.
At Kamal Adwan, Hamouda was also a patient receiving treatment for injuries he sustained in an air strike on his family’s home in Beit Lahia. His wife, daughter, father, and brother, among other relatives, were killed in the attack.
About 10 days after the strike, the Israeli forces ordered medical staff and civilians sheltering at Kamal Adwan Hospital to leave. Hamouda said hospital administration was told that people would be able to depart and go to another hospital without being arrested.
That is not what happened. Instead, Hamouda and some of his colleagues were detained by the Israeli army.
“When they attacked the hospital,” Hamouda said, “they asked all men and youth over 15 and under 55 to keep their IDs and leave the hospital.”
Their eyes were covered, their hands tied, and they were taken elsewhere, though Hamouda is not sure where.
Shortly after being taken, photos began to circulate on social media showing dozens of detainees held by Israeli soldiers in northern Gaza. In one image, a group of shirtless men stand in front while what appears to be a soldier takes their picture. It wasn’t long before people identified Hamouda as one of the men.
Maltreatment
Hamouda said, “That’s the day they took us from Kamal Adwan Hospital and asked us to look at the camera. It’s the only evidence that I was taken that day. No one knew what happened to us until that picture went to the media.”
Hamouda said he was eventually taken to Sde Teiman, where he and other detainees were forced to kneel. Those who did not comply were punished. Regarding one prisoner, Hamouda said, “They asked him to stand with his hands on his head for three or four hours.”
“Unfortunately, when they knew I was a doctor and a general surgeon, they treated me even worse,” Hamouda said. “They attacked me, hit my back and my head.” The soldiers wanted to know if he had any information about Israelis held in Gaza, but he knew nothing.
While detained, he also encountered someone he knew from the medical community—Dr. Adnan Al-Barsh. “They brought Dr. Adnan around two or three in the morning. He was treated terribly,” Hamouda said. “He was in pain… He said to me: ‘Khaled, they hit me. They attacked me violently.’” According to Hamouda, Al-Barsh also said one of his ribs was broken. Hamouda was able to provide some medicine and food for Al-Barsh, but the injured doctor was moved after two days.
Despite his own suffering and the harsh prison conditions, Al-Barsh delivered news to Hamouda. Hamouda recalled Al-Barsh telling him, “Your mother is at Al-Awda Hospital, and she is fine. I treated her.”
Hamouda expressed his gratitude for the message: “This information was very, very valuable for me because I had no information about my family.”
After three weeks, Hamouda was released. He told The Intercept that he was taken along with other detainees to the Kerem Shalom border crossing in the south, and eventually they went to Rafah. His surviving children and mother remained in the north, and it would take two months before they could be reunited. He considers himself lucky to have been released.
“All my fellow doctors who were arrested with me, or after me, or before me, they kept them there for three, four, or five months,” he said. “Some are still detained.”
Source: The Intercept