Delegates gathering in Rotterdam this week for the World Medical Association (WMA) General Assembly are being urged to place the plight of detained Palestinian medical professionals firmly on the agenda. With more than 1,700 healthcare workers killed and hundreds more imprisoned without charge during the conflict in Gaza, observers argue that the global body for medical ethics must move beyond rhetoric and take concrete action.
The article emphasizes that when doctors, nurses, and paramedics are killed, jailed, or disappeared, the consequences extend beyond the individuals themselves; patients are left without the caregivers they depend on for survival. While the WMA adopted a resolution on the protection of healthcare in conflict last year, the challenge now is to ensure that every medical association explicitly supports these principles and uses its influence to pressure governments to act.
Central to the call for action is the case of Dr. Hussam Abu Safia, the pediatrician who led Kamal Adwan Hospital, which served as the last functioning medical facility in northern Gaza until Israeli forces raided it in December 2024. Abu Safia has been held for over 22 months without charge under Israel’s Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law, a statute that allows for indefinite detention. Reports indicate he is enduring prolonged solitary confinement, beatings, severe weight loss, and a lack of treatment for pre-existing conditions. An international petition demanding his release has garnered signatures from more than 970 medical professionals across 41 countries.
Other prominent figures highlighted include Dr. Mazen al-Rantisi, a 71-year-old family physician from Ramallah known as the “doctor of the poor,” who was arrested in a predawn raid in June. Additionally, Dr. Mohammed Hassan Ali Obeid, a 43-year-old orthopedic surgeon and colleague of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), has been detained under the same law for more than 600 days without charge.
Although some detained health workers have been freed, more than 80 remain in Israeli custody, alongside at least a dozen others arrested in the occupied West Bank. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that since October 7, 2023, there have been over 1,000 attacks on healthcare in Gaza, resulting in more than 1,000 deaths and 1,700 injuries. Approximately 90 percent of the territory’s health infrastructure has been destroyed or damaged. In August 2025, UN experts described the systematic destruction of the health system as “medicide.”
Violations have also occurred in the West Bank, where no state of wartime emergency exists. The WHO documented over 1,000 attacks on healthcare since October 2023 in the region, causing 42 deaths and at least 218 injuries. Ambulances are frequently stopped at checkpoints with crews detained, medics responding to settler violence are obstructed, and vulnerable patients, such as those requiring dialysis or oncology treatment, are prevented from accessing care due to movement restrictions.
The author argues that these actions constitute a deliberate effort to dismantle Palestinian capacity for care and reflect a disregard for Palestinian life. The WMA Assembly is called upon to publicly demand the release of detained doctors, press for independent access to those still held, and support independent investigations into healthcare attacks with public findings. The piece concludes that the assembly has a duty to reaffirm the WMA’s founding proposition that medical neutrality is a universal ethical responsibility that must be upheld regardless of geography or political alliances.
The statistic about 90% of Gaza’s health infrastructure being destroyed is simply devastating and tragic.
How many more medical professionals need to suffer before the WMA stops just talking and actually acts?
Incredibly alarming. Indefinite detention of doctors who are clearly not combatants must end immediately.