Detained Palestinian Medical Staff Excluded from Prisoner Exchange Lists
Growing Concerns Over the Fate of Doctors Arrested During Recent Gaza War
Watan-The absence of names of medical staff detained in occupation prisons from the lists of released prisoners is causing widespread controversy among Palestinians, amid growing concerns about the fate of these doctors who were arrested during the recent Israeli aggression on Gaza.
Despite the release of a number of Palestinian prisoners as part of the exchange deal for the second consecutive week, the director of the Baptist Hospital, Hussam Abu Safiya, and other medical cadres remain in Israeli prisons under mysterious circumstances, without any official information about their health or psychological condition.
Abu Safiya, along with hundreds of doctors, nurses, and paramedics, were at the forefront of defending Palestinian lives during the Israeli war, facing great challenges and working in tragic conditions amid the direct targeting of hospitals.
Despite their significant efforts, the occupation forces arrested dozens of them, including hospital directors, prominent doctors, and paramedics, accusing them of “collaborating with the resistance,” a flimsy pretext that Israel repeatedly uses to justify the arrest of prominent and influential figures in Palestinian society.
According to official statistics, the number of detainees from medical and health staff exceeds 350 people, amid reports confirming their exposure to torture and ill-treatment inside prisons. One of the released prisoners, who was held in Zikim Prison, confirmed that Hussam Abu Safiya is suffering from very poor psychological and health conditions due to the pressures and torture he is subjected to.
This worrying situation has increased questions about the exclusion of doctors from exchange deals, especially since the occupation clearly seeks to silence key witnesses to its crimes in Gaza, particularly those who were in hospitals and documented the effects of the bombing and massacres committed by the occupation army.
Amid this ambiguity and Israeli secrecy, human rights and humanitarian voices have escalated, calling for urgent intervention to reveal the fate of the detained doctors and ensure their treatment according to international laws. Human rights organizations such as the Red Cross and the World Health Organization have called on the occupation to release them immediately, or at least allow them to meet with their lawyers and families, amid reports that the occupation may seek to liquidate some of them inside the detention centers.
The question that occupies the Palestinian street today remains: Will the international community move to save the detained doctors, or will the occupation continue its policy of obscuration and liquidation inside its prisons?
