Despite a ceasefire taking effect in Gaza in January after more than 15 months of Israeli aggression, over 160 Palestinian healthcare workers, including more than 20 doctors, remain imprisoned by Israel. The World Health Organization (WHO) has expressed grave concerns about their safety and well-being.

According to the Palestinian medical NGO Healthcare Workers Watch, 162 medical professionals from Gaza are still held in Israeli prisons, including some of the territory’s most experienced doctors. Additionally, 24 others remain missing after being abducted from hospitals during the war. The WHO confirmed that 297 healthcare workers had been detained since the war began but stated that it lacked updated figures. However, Healthcare Workers Watch reported that the total number of arrested Palestinian medical staff has reached 339.

The WHO has raised alarm over the mistreatment of Palestinian detainees following reports of systematic abuse in Israeli prisons. The British newspaper The Guardian, in collaboration with Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ), gathered testimonies from seven experienced doctors who were forcibly taken from hospitals, ambulances, and checkpoints in Gaza, only to endure months of beatings, starvation, and inhumane treatment in Israeli prisons before being released without charge.

Dr Mohammed Abu Selmia, director of Al-Shifa Hospital, who was imprisoned for seven months, described the horrors he faced: “No matter how much I speak about what happened in detention, it is only a fraction of the reality.” He recounted severe beatings, deprivation of food and hygiene, and witnessing detainees dying under Israeli custody. “I was beaten so brutally that I could no longer use my legs or walk. There was not a single day without torture.”

WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has condemned Israel’s continued detention of medical personnel, warning of the worsening conditions they face. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has also demanded the immediate release of Palestinian healthcare workers arbitrarily detained by Israel and called for an end to what it describes as “forced disappearances, acts of torture, and other forms of mistreatment.”