Twenty months after the current campaign of violence began in Gaza, hundreds of Palestinian health care workers remain unlawfully detained or disappeared in Israel\u2019s prison system, say medical staff and aid organizations who call it a violation of international humanitarian law that exacerbates the territory\u2019s <\/span>already-worsening health care crisis<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n More than two dozen civil society organizations \u2014 including medical groups whose doctors were taken by Israeli forces \u2014 signed a statement Monday demanding the immediate and unconditional release of health workers, as well as an end to the seemingly arbitrary detentions and <\/span>wider attacks on Gaza\u2019s health care system<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cInstead of protection, hundreds of health workers have been forcibly removed from hospital wards and patient bedsides and subjected to prolonged detention in Israeli prisons and military camps,\u201d <\/span>the joint statement said<\/span><\/a>. \u201cThe conditions of many of those still detained remain unknown. Many of those released have reported severe abuse, while some have died in custody.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Israeli forces have killed <\/span>more than 1,500 Palestinian health care workers<\/span><\/a> and 460 aid workers since October 2023, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. The military has also detained at least 300 health workers in Gaza and 239 in the West Bank over the same time period, <\/span>according to the World Health Organization<\/span><\/a>. As of February, aid organizations believe there are at least 185 Palestinian health care workers who remain unlawfully detained.<\/span><\/p>\n Protesters call on Israel to immediately and unconditionally end its attacks on Gaza’s health infrastructure and personnel, and to allow the free and safe movement of humanitarian aid in front of European Parliament on June 19, 2025, in Brussels. Thierry Monasse via Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n \u201cThese healthcare workers are not combatants, they are not criminals, and they are not mere statistics. They have families and they play life-saving roles in their communities,\u201d Joseph Belliveau, executive director of the Chicago-based aid group MedGlobal, said in a Monday statement.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cDetaining and harming these dedicated health workers, without justification or explanation, is inhumane and illegal,\u201d he continued. \u201cEvery day that my colleagues remain detained without charge or due process sends a reverberating message that civilian medics are legitimate targets.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n A spokesperson for the Israeli Prison Service did not respond to HuffPost\u2019s request for comment, though Israeli officials frequently\u00a0<\/span>justify kidnapping Palestinian medical workers<\/span><\/a> by <\/span>accusing them, without citing evidence<\/span><\/a>, of working with Hamas.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Among them is Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, MedGlobal\u2019s lead physician in Gaza, who made headlines in December <\/span>after Israeli soldiers forcibly took him from Kamal Adwan Hospital<\/span><\/a> in the north. Abu Safiya remains at Ofer Prison in the West Bank, where he\u2019s <\/span>allegedly faced severe abuse and torture<\/span><\/a> at the hands of Israeli security forces. He has still not been charged with a crime, according to Gaza human rights group Al Mezan.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe Israeli government has a brutal record of abusing and torturing its civilian detainees. The horrors that take place in Israeli detention centers are well known and documented,\u201d <\/span>the Council on American-Islamic Relations said Monday.<\/span><\/a> \u201cOur government and the nations of the world must pressure the Israeli government to immediately release Dr. Abu Safiya and all others held unjustly by Israel.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n A demonstrator holds a sign depicting Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya while protesting Israel’s killing of Gaza’s aid workers outside the Israeli Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv on April 5, 2025. Jack Guez\/AFP via Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Last year, Israeli human rights group <\/span>B\u2019Tselem released a detailed report<\/span><\/a>finding that Israeli prisons have essentially been turned into a network of torture camps, with current and former Palestinian detainees \u2014 including health workers \u2014 testifying to the extreme abuse, deep humiliation and inhumane sanitary conditions behind closed doors.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Al Mezan said <\/span>that Israel\u2019s actions violate the<\/span><\/a> 1984 Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, <\/span>and a United Nations human rights commission<\/span><\/a> in October declared that the attacks on Gaza\u2019s health care system amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. Many in the international community \u2014 including some in the U.N. \u2014 have concluded that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWith the current infrastructure damage at every level, the practice of medicine is under attack by Israel,\u201d Dr. Tlaleng Mofokeng, the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to health, <\/span>said on Saturday<\/span><\/a>. \u201cThe attacks, harassment and killings of hundreds of health care workers, destruction of health facilities and humanitarian organizations continue to catapult this genocide to proportions yet to be fully quantified.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>