Torture and health worker complicity in Israeli detention sites

All references will be found at the foot of the article, but if you click on the hyperlink numbersbelow, you will be taken to the original publication in the BMJ.

Multiple credible reports have emerged since 2023 detailing the torture and inhumane treatment of Palestinians held in Israeli detention sites.12345678 At least 75 Palestinians—including children—have died or been killed while held in Israeli detention since October 2023.9 These reports outline in graphic detail the extent of state-sanctioned Israeli violence against the Palestinian people and clearly expose repeated violations of international law. Recently released Palestinian hostages—held without charge—have reported repeated beatings and horrific conditions in Israeli prisons and detention sites.10 Several reports also raise urgent concerns about the role of Israeli health workers in acts of torture, and the failure to prevent such acts.24811

Patterns of torture and Israeli medical worker complicity

Torture by Israeli soldiers and health workers is not new. Depraved acts have been extensively documented over several decades by United Nations independent experts,12 and many human rights organisations including the United Against Torture Coalition,13 Amnesty International,14 Human Rights Watch,15 and B’Tselem.16 By the Israeli government’s own admission, torture has been used “systematically” against Palestinian people.17 Historical and contemporary violations include extreme physical, psychological, and sexual violence, the denial of medical care, sleep deprivation, the use of prolonged solitary confinement, attacks by dogs under the control of their handlers, being urinated on, and prolonged shackling of limbs—in some cases causing injuries requiring amputation—along with other forms of extreme and degrading treatment.12345678

After a barbaric incident in July 2024, nine Israeli soldiers were arrested in relation to their collective participation in the torture and sexual assault of a Palestinian man held in Israeli detention.18 So violent was this attack that the man was left in critical condition with ruptured intestines, broken ribs, and lung trauma. Despite months of reports by the UN and investigative journalists detailing the abuse of Palestinian detainees, this was the first time that Israeli soldiers had been arrested in relation to such crimes.18 Elected members of the Israeli Knesset joined protests in Israel in support of the soldiers,1819 while a survey conducted by the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies found that 65% of Israeli Jews believed the arrested soldiers should not face criminal charges, both of which highlight an entrenched culture of wider political and public support for such violence.20 The Israeli lawyer Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi who leaked the footage of the attack has since been arrested for doing so, with the government and several politicians accusing the lawyer of damaging Israel’s global standing and casting Tomer-Yerushalmi’s efforts to prosecute violence as a project to undermine the state.21

Particularly troubling is the longstanding and well documented complicity of Israeli health workers in torture,22232425 wider detention practices, and the overarching conditions of occupation and apartheid. Both The BMJ and The Lancet have previously reported on violations,2425 which collectively contravene a multitude of laws, conventions, professional codes, and the core tenets of medical ethics.2627 Recent survivors of detention have reported that Israeli health workers have been physically violent towards detainees, knowingly denied medical treatment, and neglected detainees’ injuries.24811

Israeli whistleblowers have reported that detainees at the Sde Teiman detention site in Israel were denied analgesia during painful procedures, while doctors working at the site were told not to write their names on official documents, with one doctor revealing that “officials feared they could be identified and charged with war crimes.”2829 Others have reported they lacked the training for treatments and procedures they were made to administer.29 An Israeli Ministry of Health policy document reviewed by investigative journalists working for the New York Times explicitly stated that detainees treated at the Sde Teiman field hospital should be blindfolded and handcuffed to their beds.29 Drawing from extensive testimonials and evidence, Physicians for Human Rights Israel produced a report on medical ethics and Palestinians in detention, concluding that “conditions and the medical care standards at Sde Teiman are a low point for medical ethics and professionalism,” and “that the Israeli healthcare system has enabled the ethical violations previously outlined concerning the medical treatment of Gazan detainees.”30

Targeting Palestinian healthcare workers

The total number of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and detention sites exceeded 9100 as of October 2025.31 Detailed reporting from Healthcare Workers Watch Palestine published in July 2025 identified 405 cases of unlawful detention of Palestinian healthcare workers since October 2023.32 At least five Palestinian healthcare workers are known to have been killed in Israeli detention in the same period.33 Among those killed was Adnan al-Bursh, a respected orthopaedic surgeon who was illegally detained by Israeli forces in December 2023. He was held without charge and died in prison in April 2024 after severe mistreatment.34 As of October 2025, at least 95 Palestinian healthcare workers remained in detention,35 including Hussam Abu Safiyeh, paediatrician and director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, who was abducted and unlawfully detained by Israeli forces in December 2024.36

These are not isolated incidents and must be understood in relation to evidence that suggests a broader strategy of targeting healthcare professionals, aimed at undermining the Palestinian healthcare system and maximising harm inflicted against the Palestinian people.373839 This strategy extends beyond the detention and torture of healthcare workers, to the killing of more than 1700 Palestinian healthcare workers in Gaza since October 2023,40 and clearly documented patterns of systematic and targeted destruction of healthcare infrastructure, including hospitals, clinics, ambulances, and essential medical equipment.41424344 These acts constitute clear violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention, intended to protect medical personnel during armed conflict.45

Legal frameworks and ethical commitments

Complicity in torture represents not only a violation of several legal covenants and ratified agreements but also the profound betrayal of medical ethics,2627464748 transforming medicine from an act of care into one of repression. International ethical codes explicitly forbid such involvement; the United Nations Principles of Medical Ethics deem participation in torture a gross violation,47 while the World Medical Association’s (WMA) International Code of Medical Ethics affirms that physicians must never exploit medical knowledge to violate human rights.48 These standards represent a clear commitment to professional integrity and ethically responsible medical practice.

Documentation and institutional silence

Despite decades of extensive documentation exposing the Israeli State’s systematic use of torture, these grave violations have been persistently disregarded, fostering a culture of impunity that enables repeated and flagrant breaches of the Palestinian people’s fundamental human rights. Particularly alarming is the documented complicity and, in many cases, the active participation of Israeli health workers in acts of torture.22232425 The Israeli Medical Association (IMA) has failed to investigate allegations of complicity among its members,4950 while the WMA and many national medical associations have failed to act in a timely and decisive manner on growing evidence of torture and medical complicity, which now spans several decades. In this context, it is important to note that medical associations (including the WMA), associated trade unions, and specialty bodies such as royal colleges, societies, and registration bodies all bear a responsibility to establish, promote, and enforce ethical codes of practice for their members.

We maintain that a failure to explicitly condemn violations in a timely manner, to clearly name perpetrators, and to demand accountability and remedial intervention, constitutes complicity. Medical institutions including the WMA, many national medical institutions, professional bodies, academic institutions, reputable journals, and others have failed to forcefully condemn and act on clear patterns of violence. Their failure to sever ties with complicit institutions and join calls for international accountability and justice, raises urgent questions about double standards, the politicisation and selective application of medical ethics, and our wider professional values as a global healthcare workforce.51

The IMA must be pressed to acknowledge, independently investigate, and—most importantly—meaningfully challenge the systems of violence and oppression in which its members have actively participated or are otherwise complicit. As the IMA has thus far repeatedly failed to act, global networks of medical institutions such as the WMA must immediately revoke the IMA’s status and sever ties with Israeli medical institutions, as was the case with the removal of the medical associations of the apartheid states of South Africa and Rhodesia in 1970.52 To this end, in a long overdue move, members of the BMA voted at the June 2025 annual representative meeting to “suspend engagement with the IMA,” though with the caveat that this is only “until it affirms medical neutrality and condemns attacks on healthcare in Gaza.”5354

The culture of impunity that has allowed flagrant, repeated breaches of rights to persist must be brought to an end. The thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli detention sites must be immediately released and provided with the reparative care they require. Among them are at least 95 Palestinian healthcare workers,35 the health and safety of whom remains under threat.5556

There is no place for the misuse of medicine as an adjunct to state repression and violence. Such practices represent an abhorrent derogation of our professional values and responsibilities and are gross violations of our Palestinian colleagues’ basic right to life, health, and dignity. Torture not only destroys the lives of its victims but health worker participation and complicity in such acts corrodes the integrity of the health professions, and all those individuals and institutions that enable it.

BMJ 2025; 391 doi: (Published 07 November 2025) Cite this as: BMJ 2025;391:r2347

1. Sara el-Solh, medical doctor1,
2. James Smith, medical doctor12,
3. Amira Nimerawi, CEO3,
4. Mads Gilbert, medical doctor4

Footnotes

• Competing interests: None declared.
• Provenance and peer review: Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

References

1. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). Thematic report on detention in the context of hostilities in Gaza (October 2023-June 2024)
2. B’Tselem. Welcome to hell: The Israeli prison system as a network of torture camps.
3. Human Rights Watch. Israel: Palestinian healthcare workers tortured.
4. Physicians for Human Rights Israel. Unlawfully detained, tortured, and starved: The plight of Gaza’s medical workers in Israeli custody.
5. UNRWA. Detention and alleged ill-treatment of detainees from Gaza during Israel-Hamas War.
6. Amnesty International. Israel/OPT: Horrifying cases of torture and degrading treatment of Palestinian detainees amid spike in arbitrary arrests.
7. Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR). Torture and genocide: the shattered futures of former Palestinian detainees in Gaza.
8. Aon M, Bracq N, Michaelsen L et al “What is there left after losing oneself?”: 100 testimonies of genocidal torture from Gaza. Torture2025;35:61-78. doi:10.7146/torture.v35i2.159560 pmid:41190538
9. United Nations. At least 75 Palestinians have died in Israeli detention since 7 October 2023 – UN Human Rights in Occupied Palestinian Territory.
10. Tantesh S, Christou W. ‘Cruellest forms of torture’: freed Palestinians describe horrors of Israeli jail. The Guardian. 2025 Oct 14.
11. Dyer O, Israeli doctors participated in torture, alleges released director of al-Shifa Hospital. BMJ2024;386:q1524. doi:10.1136/bmj.q1524 pmid:38986564
12. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). Israel must end impunity for torture and ill-treatment – UN experts.
13. United Against Torture Coalition. Alternative report for consideration regarding Israel’s fourth periodic report to the UN Committee Against Torture (CAT).
14. Amnesty International. Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (oPT). Briefing to the Committee Against Torture.
15. Human Rights Watch. Torture and ill-treatment. Israel’s interrogation of Palestinians from the Occupied Territories.
16. B’Tselem. Torture during interrogations: Testimony of Palestinian detainees, testimony of interrogators.
17. Borger J. Israeli government report admits systematic torture of Palestinians. The Guardian. 2000 Feb 11.
18. Graham-Harrison E, Kierszenbaum Q. IDF charges reservist with aggravated abuse of Palestinian prisoners. The Guardian. 2024 Jul 30.
19. Barakat A. The Rape of Palestinian Prisoners Under Israeli Occupation. Institute for Palestine Studies. 2024 Oct 2. Archived copy available on request.
20. Middle East Eye. Majority of Israeli Jews believe prison rape suspects shouldn’t face criminal charges.
21. Graham-Harrison E. Israel’s top military lawyer arrested after she admitted leaking video of soldiers’ abuse. The Guardian. 2025 Nov 3.
22. Marton R. The involvement of Israeli physicians in the torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian detainees. 2012
23. The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel. Physicians for Human Rights Israel. Doctoring the evidence, abandoning the victim. The involvement of medical professionals in torture and ill treatment in Israel.
24. Devi S, Israeli doctors accused of collusion in torture. Lancet2013;381:794. . doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(13)60612-1 pmid:23668498
25. Yudkin JS. The Israeli Medical Association and doctors’ complicity in torture. BMJ2009;339:b4078. . doi:10.1136/bmj.b4078 pmid:19812132
26. United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner. Convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
27. World Medical Association. Declaration of Tokyo: Guidelines for physicians concerning torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in relation to detention and imprisonment. 1975
28. CNN. Strapped down, blindfolded, held in diapers: Israeli whistleblowers detail abuse of Palestinians in shadowy detention center. 2024 May 11.
29. Kingsley P, Shbair B. Inside the base where Israel has detained thousands of Gazans. The New York Times. 2024 Jun 6.
30. PHRI. Medical ethics and the detention of Gaza residents since the start of the 2023 war. An ethical opinion paper. 2024
31. Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs. Total identified Palestinian political detainees in Israeli prisons [Arabic]. 2025 Jun 5.
32. Healthcare Workers Watch. Update #10 Detained Healthcare Workers – July 22, 2025.
33. Healthcare Workers Watch. Fifty-five healthcare workers from Gaza are listed for release from Israeli detention today, while Israel continues to hold at least 115 more captives. 2025 Oct 13.
34. Sparks J. ‘He was the light of my life and I lost him’: How a famous surgeon died in an Israeli prison after being taken from Gaza hospital. Sky News. 2024 Jun 6.
35. Healthcare Workers Watch. Released Gaza doctor describes torture and medical neglect in detention as Israel continues to incarcerate at least ninety‐five Palestinian healthcare workers. 2025 Oct 20.
36. Amnesty International. Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territory: Release Paediatrician and Hospital Director: Dr Hussam Abu Safiya. 2025 Jan 14
37. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel. Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel. United Nations General Assembly. A/79/232.
38. Perugini N, Gordon N. Medical lawfare: the Nakba and Israel’s attacks on Palestinian healthcare. J Palest Stud2024;53:68-91doi:10.1080/0377919X.2024.2330366
39. Hanbali L. The destruction of the health sector in the Gaza Strip. Institute for Palestine Studies. 2024
40. OCHA. Reported impact snapshot – Gaza Strip (22 Oct 2025).
41. OHCHR. Thematic Report – Attacks on hospitals during the escalation of hostilities in Gaza (7 October 2023 – 30 June 2024). 2024 Dec 31
42. Al-Haq. The systematic destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system: A pattern of genocide. 2024.
43. Mueller JC. Medelacide: the intentional and systematic destruction of healthcare infrastructure. Global Social Challenges Journal2025;10:1-28doi:10.1332/27523349Y2025D000000037.
44. Abi-Rached JM, Sharara AI, Nasrallah MP, Abiad F. Healthocide and medical neutrality: a call for action and reflection. BMJ Glob Health2025;10:e018656. doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2024-018656 pmid:40763983
45. International Committee of the Red Cross. Geneva convention relative to the protection of civilian persons in time of war of 12 August 1949 (Fourth Geneva Convention).
46. United Nations. International covenant on civil and political rights. General Assembly resolution 2200A (XXI).
47. United Nations. Principles of medical ethics relevant to the role of health personnel, particularly physicians, in the protection of prisoners and detainees against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
48. World Medical Association. International code of medical ethics. Revised 2022 Oct
49. Summerfield D. Is the international regulation of medical complicity with torture largely window dressing? The case of Israel and the lessons of a 12-year medical ethical appeal. J Med Ethics2022;48:367-70. doi:10.1136/medethics-2021-107340 pmid:34131004
50. Geffen L, Besser M, Goemaere E, et al. Upholding medical ethics: a letter to the Israeli Medical Association. Lancet2025;406:907. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(25)01662-9 pmid:40854323
51. Suann B, Nimerawi A, Abbas S, et al. World Medical Association complicity: selective ethics and the destruction of Gaza’s health system. Lancet2025;406:1002-3. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(25)01691-5 pmid:40889508
52. Stewart J. The expulsion of South Africa and Rhodesia from the Commonwealth Medical Association, 1947-70. Med Hist2017;61:548-67. doi:10.1017/mdh.2017.58 pmid:28901869
53. Osman N. UK doctors call on BMA to cut ties with Israeli medics over Gaza. The New Arab. 2025 Jul 4.
54. British Medical Association. An update on the BMA’s position on the Israel-Gaza conflict.
55. Aladam M. Palestinian doctor Abu Safiya’s health in ‘alarming’ condition, Israeli rights group warns. Middle East Eye. 2025 Sept 26.
56. MSF. MSF calls for the immediate release of our detained colleague.