Israel's torture and rape of healthcare workers in Gaza

A new report from Human Rights Watch denounces torture, rape and humiliation suffered by Palestinian healthcare workers in Gaza in Israeli prisons.

• Human Rights Watch denounces the appalling conditions of detention to which Gaza health workers have been subjected in Israel.
• The testimonies speak of electroshock, rape with truncheons, burning and denial of health care.
• Since October 7, Israel has killed over 500 Palestinian health workers in Gaza and arrested more than 300.

Israeli soldiers and prison guards have tortured, raped and humiliated the Palestinian healthcare personnel of Gaza.It is the complaint contained in a new relationship of the non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch, which asked the International Court of Justice to open an investigation into war crimes.

The testimonies come from doctors and nurses who as of 7 October 2023 were captured by the Israeli army during hospital sieges and evacuations.Some of them were detained for months in Israeli prisons and here, as Human Rights Watch reports, they suffered inhuman and degrading treatments of all kinds, such as humiliation, beatings, forced stress positions, prolonged handcuffing and blindfolding, denial of medical care and sexual abuse.Two health workers have died during detention, while Israel has killed since October at least 500 health workers in the Gaza Strip.

The Human Rights Watch report

From March to June Human Rights Watch he collected the testimonies of Palestinian health workers arrested by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip and then released.The stories, very similar to each other, were then cross-referenced with documents fromUN and other humanitarian realities regarding Israel's modus operandi in Gaza and its prisons.

Some health workers said they were taken by Israeli soldiers while they were at work during the sieges hospitals of Gaza.Others were arrested during the evacuations of some cities and neighborhoods in the Palestinian territory.All were accused of being close to Hamas, a false accusation, as demonstrated by their subsequent release.Health workers have been transferred to some prisons and military bases in Israel, where they reported having suffered inhuman and degrading treatments.

The Human Rights Watch report states that they all said they had been stripped, beaten, blindfolded and handcuffed for many weeks.Paramedic Walid Khalili said he was left hanging from a chain handcuffed and subjected to electric shock in Sde Teiman prison, where they have already died since October 35 prisoners, including a man sodomized with an electric baton.Former Israeli prisoners and soldiers serving in Sde Teiman they had already reported a proven system of torture, abuse and rape, which had led to the arrest of some guards as well as political leaders and prominent Israeli personalities they mobilized to ask for his release.

Violence and rape

Eyad Abed, a paramedic at the Indonesian Hospital in Gaza, said he was constantly beaten by Israeli staff during detention, to the point that he broke ribs and coccyx without any help being given to him.

“Every minute they beat us.All over the body, on sensitive areas between the legs, the chest, the back.They kicked us all over our bodies and faces.They used the front of their boots which had a metal tip, then their weapons.They had lighters:a soldier tried to burn me”, Abed's words reported by Human Rights Watch.An ambulance driver instead said he was placed in a cage with dozens of other detainees and from there he witnessed Israeli guards beating two men to death with metal bars.He was left during interrogations up to 15 hours in his underwear on a chair handcuffed, without being given the opportunity to go to the bathroom and forced to urinate on themselves, without being provided with food and water.

The Human Rights Watch report also talks about rape and threats of sexual violence.Nurse Khader Abu Nada said that when he denied being a Hamas affiliate, Israeli guards threatened to rape him with an electric baton, saying they would then take care of his mother."I was psychologically destroyed, I felt humiliated”, his testimony.Another paramedic found himself in a cell with a man who the anus was bleeding, who told him that he had been raped in turn by three Israeli soldiers with an assault rifle.Another doctor also told of cell searches that turned into sexual abuse.

The appeal to the International Court of Justice

The Human Rights Watch report denounces the terrible conditions of detention of Palestinian health workers.Water and food were rationed and all the prisoners had was a garbage bag which the Israeli guards filled with water for them to drink and with cans of tuna for them to eat.A health worker said he lost 22 kilos during detention and detainees were denied health care.

What is contained in the Human Rights Watch report is in line with other reports by humanitarian organizations and journalistic investigations.The Israeli media Haaretz last March he revealed that the autopsies of Palestinian prisoners who died in Israeli prisons have revealed omissions and signs of abuse.The fact that health workers are a target of the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip is also nothing new.From October 7th to today Israel he killed at least 500 healthcare workers, in some cases deliberately.According to the Ministry of Health of the Gaza Strip, controlled by Hamas, the Israeli army has since October he arrested over 300 healthcare workers.

As Human Rights Watch reports, the arbitrary detention and Israel's violence against Palestinian health workers has worsened the situation health crisis ongoing Gaza, where the Israeli offensive has so far caused more than 40 thousand dead and almost 100 thousand injured.For this reason in its report the non-governmental organization asks that the International Court of Justice, That is already working on the accusation of genocide against the state of Israel, open a new investigation into the violence and torture of healthcare workers, a war crime.