A UK Foreign Office minister has called for an investigation into a report that medical staff in Gaza faced violent and humiliating treatment in detention after an Israeli raid.
Nasser hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis – at the time the largest functioning hospital in the Palestinian territory – was raided over several days by Israeli forces in an attack that began on 15 February.
At the time, doctors said that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) ground troops stormed the premises after cutting off roads to the medical centre and shelling its facilities. The attack forced patients, medical personnel and displaced civilians sheltering at the hospital to flee, and at least 13 patients died in the aftermath, staff said, mostly due to a lack of electricity needed to run equipment such as ventilators.
The IDF described the raid as “precise and limited” and based on intelligence that Hamas militants were operating from the complex and may have kept hostages there.
The military later said it had apprehended about 200 suspects during the operation. According to a BBC investigation published on Tuesday, dozens of medics from Nasser were among that number.
Three sources described being blindfolded, forced to strip to their underwear, and repeatedly beaten and subject to other cruel and humiliating treatment during detention. Dr Ahmed Abu Sabha, 26, said that he was held for a week, during which time muzzled dogs were set on him and his hand was broken by an interrogator.
Responding to a question from the Labour MP for Cynon Valley, Bethan Winter, Foreign Office minister Andrew Mitchell told the Commons that the British government was pressing for “a full explanation and investigation”.
“When it comes to targeting operations there are lawyers embedded in the Israeli and the IDF command, just as there are in Britain, and that should ensure that the acceptance and honouring of international humanitarian law is kept, but I agree with [Winters] a full explanation is required,” he added.
In response to the BBC, the IDF did not comment on specific accounts of mistreatment but denied that any medical staff were harmed. “Any abuse of detainees is contrary to orders and is therefore strictly prohibited,” a statement said.
Commenting on Mitchell’s remarks, Sacha Deshmukh, the chief executive of Amnesty International UK, said:
“It’s not good enough for Andrew Mitchell to say the UK will press the Israeli authorities to investigate these harrowing allegations.
“We know from years of so-called ‘investigations’ conducted by the Israeli military authorities into abuses committed by their forces in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, that there’s a vanishingly small prospect of there being any accountability whatsoever.
“The UK must get firmly behind efforts by the international criminal court and the international court of justice to properly examine the growing catalogue of atrocities in Gaza.”
Israeli attacks on struggling hospitals in the Gaza Strip have been condemned as a breach of international humanitarian law. Israel says the militants’ use of medical facilities to hide out or use as bases for launching operations makes the sites legitimate targets.
The IDF has found underground tunnels in the vicinity of hospitals in Gaza, including al-Shifa in Gaza City, formerly the territory’s largest medical centre. However, journalists and human rights organisations have been unable to verify claims that medical buildings have been used as cover for major Hamas command-and-control centres.
Other Palestinians from Gaza have also described ill-treatment at secret Israeli detention sites set up since the war broke out, where they were detained without charge under an Israeli legal practice that means they are not classified as prisoners of war.
An internal UN report from earlier this month described widespread abuse of Palestinian detainees, including beatings, dog attacks, the prolonged use of stress positions and sexual assault.
It estimated that more than 4,000 men, women and children have been rounded up in Gaza since the start of the current conflict, triggered by Hamas raids into southern Israel on 7 October that killed about 1,200 Israelis, with another 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli data. More than 31,000 people in Gaza have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory offensive, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
At the same time, conditions in existing Israeli prisons have rapidly deteriorated since the outbreak of the war, on the orders of the far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir. Relatives and lawyers for those held say they have not been able to speak to inmates since 7 October, and the International Committee of the Red Cross’s detention visits have been suspended.
