Since the start of the genocide in Gaza, Israel has arrested hundreds of essential medical workers, effectively paralyzing an already fragile healthcare system under constant destruction. These arrests have removed critical, highly trained individuals from their roles at a time when their expertise is most urgently needed. Dozens of these medical workers remain detained without due process as of today, many held for prolonged periods of at least a year despite facing no formal charges. Many of those detained are senior physicians and specialists whose absence cannot be easily replaced.
Testimonies received from detained medical workers over the past two years describe dire conditions of incarceration. Severe medical neglect, starvation, and abuse amounting to torture have become systematic across Israeli detention facilities, resulting in the deaths of at least 103 Palestinian prisoners, including five medical workers from Gaza known to PHRI.
Recognizing the special protections afforded to medical personnel under International Humanitarian Law, and the urgent need for Gaza’s doctors to carry out their duties and begin to rehabilitate the extensive damage inflicted on Gaza’s healthcare system, PHRI has sent a request to the Israeli Chief of Staff to reconsider and revoke the detention orders currently issued under the Unlawful Combatants Law against doctors from Gaza, among them pediatricians, orthopedic specialists, and surgeons. This effort has been followed by a petition to the Supreme Court demanding the release of 14 doctors from Gaza whose cases PHRI has followed since their arrests, in full recognition of the critical need for medical personnel as Gaza faces an extreme shortage.
Despite protections under International Humanitarian Law, and an ongoing ceasefire, doctors from Gaza are still being held without due process and subjected to severe conditions amounting to torture. In the context of ongoing humanitarian collapse and the near-total destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system, PHRI stresses that rehabilitation cannot begin without the release of medical workers. Doctors are indispensable to restoring even the most basic medical capacity. Their continued detention, despite no formal charges, blocks the most essential first steps toward recovery.
The detention of Gaza’s doctors – who could provide urgently needed medical care – actively obstructs the rehabilitation of the healthcare system and prevents any meaningful recovery. PHRI therefore calls for the immediate cancellation of these detention orders and urges both national and international actors to take action in solidarity, enabling these physicians to return home and resume their life-saving duties.
