The BMA has called for an urgent investigation into reports that doctors and other healthcare staff in Gaza have been mistreated and assaulted by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Latifa Patel, chair of the BMA’s representative body, said the reports were “deeply worrying” and emphasised that all healthcare workers were “protected by the Geneva Conventions.”
“Attacks against them are completely unacceptable,” she said. “The BMA condemns any mistreatment of medical professionals—a clear violation of the principle of medical neutrality—and calls for an urgent independent investigation.”
The condemnation came after the BBC reported accounts of medical staff in Gaza who described being blindfolded, detained, forced to strip, and repeatedly beaten by Israeli troops after their hospital, Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, was raided last month.1
Hundreds of health staff killed and arrested
The latest report from the humanitarian organisation Insecurity Insight stated that there had been more than 1000 incidents of violence against or obstruction of access to healthcare facilities in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories between 7 October 2023 and 2 March 2024.2
Of these, 29 were reported in Israel, with 14 health workers killed in attacks carried out by Hamas militants on 7 October last year.
In the occupied Palestinian territories, 994 incidents have been recorded: 766 in Gaza and 174 in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. “At least 168 health workers have been killed, 311 arrested, and health facilities damaged 183 times. Emergency medical teams and ambulances have frequently been obstructed from reaching patients in need of care,” the report said.
However, it added that the total number of healthcare workers killed in Gaza may be higher because only reports where a date and location could be identified were included. “Other sources have reported 403 health workers killed,” it said.
Vigil for the dead
In Ireland, doctors, nurses, medical students and other hospital staff gathered outside Cork University Hospital last month to read out the names of 403 healthcare staff killed in Gaza.3
The list, which took 30 minutes to read, included the names of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, dentists and other staff, the Irish Examiner reported. It did not include medics who were missing, had been detained, or were only presumed dead.