Torture and health worker complicity in Israeli detention sites
JVL Introduction
As of October 2025 three were over 9,100 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and detention sites.
They are held in generally appalling conditions.
Torture of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention is unfortunately well documented with plenty of evidence of the misuse of medicine as an adjunct to state repression and violence. This article provides a comprehensive overview of previous reports on the topic.
Evidence related to the unlawful imprisonment an occasional death of Palestinian health professionals “suggests a broader strategy of targeting healthcare professionals, aimed at undermining the Palestinian healthcare system and maximising harm inflicted against the Palestinian people”.
What is happening is in clear breach of several legal covenants and ratified agreements and is also a profound betrayal of medical ethics. Despite extensive documentation there is a pervasive culture of impunity with the Israeli Medical Association failing to investigate allegations of complicity among its members. The World Medical Association is also failing in its duty.
“In the face of such violations,” says the authors, “we have a moral and legal obligation, not only to speak out, but to act.”
RK
This article was originally published by BMJ on Fri 7 Nov 2025. Read the original here.
Torture and health worker complicity in Israeli detention sites
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The Nazi doctor Mengele springs to mind on reading this article.
Could someone explain how the Israeli doctors described in the article have managed to debase themselves to such brutally sadistic levels of depravity?
this is beyond horrific. How come that Isreal is behaving at the level or worse than the Gastapo I ask. In what way can they justify this. It is time the goverments who are complict in this were exposed fully for all the people they are supposed to goven can see. There has to be consequances one way or another.
Although I commend the research in this article, could I ask if there have been many torture chambers where medics have NOT been on hand to revive the victims so they can be tortured again? Chile , the Soviet Union, provide many such examples. Even more common is the withholding of vital medical care from political prisoners and ordinary detainees, ranging in severity from the ‘paracetamol for cancer ‘ treatment in UK detention centres, to the lethally high death rates in the camps where defeated Isis members are confined by admittedly beleaguered Kurdish forces. It was a doctor who drove a van into a nightclub near Leicester square in the 00s as an act of terrorism, remember? Maybe my own experiences with doctors are influencing me here, but I cannot see why everyone is shocked that Israeli military and prison doctors are helping to carry out the genocide. Of course we must all support every effort to bring these medical perpetrators to justice, and for a start the World medical association should indeed sever all ties with the IMA. When are we going to see a warrant out for these doctors , and a ban on their entry to the UK?