Darkness hung over the operating room at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in central Gaza as surgeon Issam Abu Ajwa focused all his energy on saving a patient, the sounds of medical equipment mixing with the groans of the wounded man.
As the doctor fought desperately to save his life, the operating room doors were suddenly violently flung open. Dr Ajwa turned, still gripping a blood-soaked instrument, to find a group of armed Israeli soldiers standing in front of him.
“Are you Dr Issam Abu Ajwa?” one soldier, wearing a black helmet and protective shield, asked. “Yes, I am,” the doctor calmly replied.
Then the blows began. The soldiers dragged him from the room still wearing his blood-stained medical scrubs and tied his hands and blindfolded him. For hours, he found himself handcuffed to an Israeli military truck, packed with fellow doctors and nurses.
“Our faces were pale, our eyes filled with fear, and the sound of shelling echoed in the distance,” he told The New Arab. “We were taken to a detention centre in Israel, where the nightmare that would last for months began.”
The doctor says that he was thrown on the floor and kicked in his head and body, with salt water poured into his ears. “The pain was unbearable; my head felt like it was going to explode,” he said. “They assaulted us deliberately, doctors and nurses, just because of our profession,” he added.
“The most crushing part was when an investigator told me, ‘You are a great surgeon, right? We’ll make sure you never perform surgery again.'”
After days of having his hands bound, Dr Ajwa’s fingers began to swell, and he experienced a loss of sensation. “They wanted to numb my hands so I couldn’t return to work if I were released. It wasn’t just physical torture; it was psychological torture as well,” he explained to TNA.
Dr Mohammed Abu Salmiya, director of Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, was arrested in November 2023Â and detained for seven months, during which time he was tortured.
“They violated our dignity. In one moment, we were stripped of all our human rights and reduced to mere numbers. We couldn’t tell night from day, and we couldn’t even recognise ourselves. In prison, we became just victims of torture,” Dr Abu Salmiya said.
The senior doctor was arrested by soldiers while travelling with a convoy of patients after Israel ordered the evacuation of Al-Shifa Hospital.
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“When I told them my name, they pointed their guns at me, lasers on my head and chest, and immediately detained me, as though I was some major prize,” he recalled.
He was beaten with rifle butts and chairs as the soldiers shoved dirt in his mouth and poured sand on his head. Later he was thrown into a truck of people piled on top of one another.
“You’re just a number here. If you’re lucky, you’ll leave as a corpse,” one of the Israeli soldiers told him. “At that time, I felt that I needed to cry, but I could not,” Abu Salmiya told TNA.
The conditions where Mahmoud Abu Shehadeh, head of the orthopaedic surgery department at Nasser Hospital, was held weren’t much better. He was arrested while performing his medical duties.
“They stripped me naked in the cold and forced me to stand outside while cold water was sprayed on me. They laughed as we shivered, kicking us when we collapsed from exhaustion,” he told TNA.Â
“We’re human beings. It’s natural to be afraid, but what worried me most was why we were treated this way. We’re doctors doing our humanitarian work. Why are we being punished?” he said.
One of the most harrowing experiences for Abu Shehadeh was watching his colleagues being dragged from their cells and tortured, their cries for help echoing through the prison. “Every minute felt like an eternity of torment,” he said.
Medical teams in Gaza have been on the frontline of Israel’s brutal war, working tirelessly under continuous bombardment to treat the wounded while being deliberately targeted.
Over 30 hospitals and health centres have been bombed, with at least 20 completely shut down due to damage or lack of supplies and fuel.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) reports that more than 1,000 doctors, nurses, and paramedics have been killed in Gaza, and at least 297 others arrested. The health system in Gaza has all but collapsed, with a devastating shortage of experienced medical staff and destroyed infrastructure.
“Targeting doctors is the destruction of a society’s foundation. When you destroy the health system, you destroy the ability of people to survive,” Laila Al-Mansi, a psychologist with Physicians for Human Rights, told TNA.
“The psychological toll on healthcare workers is just as severe as the physical one. Many suffer from PTSD, compounded by the constant fear of becoming the next target.”
Psychological trauma
“The torture they endure isn’t just physical; it’s a systematic attempt to destroy them psychologically,” Samer Khalil, a psychiatrist in Gaza, told TNA.Â
“Doctors use their hands to save lives. When those hands are rendered useless, it leads to profound psychological trauma,” he said. “We’re talking about PTSD, severe depression, and recurring nightmares. Doctors who’ve undergone this level of torture may struggle to return to work, losing confidence in their abilities.”
The Health Workers Watch (HWW), a Palestinian medical NGO, confirmed that 162 medical workers remain in Israeli detention, including some of Gaza’s top doctors, while 24 others are missing after being transferred from hospitals during the conflict.
The detention of these healthcare professionals is a blatant violation of international law, said Moaz Al-Sir, director of HWW. “Depriving civilians of medical care only exacerbates the population’s suffering.”
Among the detained is Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza. Arrested in December 2024, he was last seen in Israeli drone footage walking towards a line of tanks, still wearing his white coat, amidst the ruins of his hospital.
Despite the risks, Abu Safiya remained at the hospital to ensure its operations continued, increasing its bed capacity from 120 to 200. However, after the airstrike that killed his 15-year-old son, Ibrahim, he was forcibly evacuated by Israeli forces in late December 2024.
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He was transferred to a detention camp in the Negev before being moved to Ofer Prison. Israeli authorities say they are holding him on suspicion of “involvement in terrorist activities”, though no evidence has been provided.
A lawyer recently visited Abu Safiya and confirmed he had been tortured, beaten, and denied medical treatment for a leg injury and heart condition. His family reports that his health is deteriorating rapidly.
“We are incredibly concerned about his health. He was injured when arrested, and now we fear for his life,” Elias Abu Safiya, his son, told TNA.
Health experts warn that the impact of these attacks will extend far beyond the immediate destruction. “What is happening in Gaza is the systematic dismantling of the health system. Even after the fighting stops, it will take decades to recover,” Michael Kaplan from Doctors Without Borders explained.
“Injured children will grow up with disabilities, and many survivors will suffer from chronic illnesses due to the lack of medical care. This is more than just a medical crisis, it’s an existential one.”
Sally Ibrahim is a Palestinian reporter with The New Arab based in the Gaza Strip
