DaysofPal – Israel’s actions during the so-called ceasefire have made one reality unmistakably clear: nothing has changed for Gaza’s devastated healthcare system. Israel has continued to kill civilians through airstrikes and gunfire while simultaneously preventing Gaza’s medical infrastructure from recovering.
Doctors inside the Strip remain imprisoned, and foreign volunteers are still being denied entry, leaving hospitals unable to function and patients without the care they desperately need.
Abducted Gaza Doctors Still Not Released
The most alarming continuity is Israel’s ongoing detention of Gaza’s medical staff. Dozens of physicians were abducted during assaults on hospitals over the past year and remain in Israeli custody today.
Among them is Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the pediatric director at Kamal Adwan Hospital, who was seized nearly a year ago when Israeli forces stormed the facility, killed several members of its staff, and destroyed much of the building.
Reports from detention indicate that Abu Safiya has endured beatings, starvation, and repeated torture. Also detained is Dr. Marwan al-Hams, the director of a field hospital and one of Gaza’s most experienced emergency physicians, who was abducted in July.
Palestinian medical networks say that a total of 28 Gaza doctors are still in Israeli prisons; eight of them are senior specialists in critical fields such as intensive care, orthopaedics, pediatrics, cardiology, and surgery. Their continued detention deprives Gaza of expertise that cannot be replaced under siege.
Israel Blocks Foreign Doctors From Returning to Gaza
At the same time, Israel is obstructing the return of international volunteer doctors who are urgently needed to treat the wounded, the chronically ill, and those suffering from the growing famine. British surgeons Graeme Groome, Victoria Rose, and Khaled Dawas were all notified, only days before scheduled travel, that they would not be allowed to enter Gaza despite the ceasefire.
For Groome, this was the second time Israel blocked his entry during the two-year war. The pattern has been repeated with physicians from the United States and Europe. American doctor Mimi Syed and French doctor Catherine Le Scolin-Quere, both of whom had previously worked in Gaza’s hospitals, travelled to Jordan to return for another medical rotation.
After speaking publicly about the atrocities they witnessed and the humanitarian collapse they treated firsthand, they were informed by Israeli authorities that they would not be allowed to enter Israel or Gaza.
These restrictions remain in place even as Gaza faces one of the worst medical crises in its history. Hospitals struggle to operate without electricity, supplies, or staff, and many facilities continue to report catastrophic shortages of surgeons, intensive care specialists, and trauma physicians.
Palestinian detainees released from Israeli prisons have described widespread and systematic abuse since October 2023, including starvation, medical neglect, humiliation, sexual assault, physical violence, theft, and long-term solitary confinement. Rights groups say these abuses amount to an organized system of mistreatment.
The ceasefire has done nothing to stop this pattern. Israel continues to hold Gaza’s doctors in prison, continues to block foreign medical teams from entering, and continues to enforce conditions that prevent hospitals from functioning. The result is a healthcare system being deliberately pushed toward collapse by the ongoing restrictions that deny Gaza access to the people needed to keep its medical lifeline alive.
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