MSF calls on Israel to release detained Palestinian health workers

Doctors Without Borders, also known as MSF, called on Monday for Israel to immediately release all Palestinian healthcare workers it said were arbitrarily detained.

The Geneva-based medical charity said it was outraged by the treatment of healthcare workers, most of whom it said were being held in dire conditions and without justification. It joined calls for the release of Hussam Abu Safiya, a paediatrician and the director of Gaza's Kamal Adwan Hospital, who has been held since December 2024.

MSF said Abu Safiya's detention followed what it called a pattern of Israeli authorities detaining and targeting medical staff across Palestine. Israel said earlier this month that his detention was lawful and rejected reports that he had a life-threatening condition.

The statement came after a United Nations investigative team and several UN rights experts raised alarm about Abu Safiya's case. About 50 people, including doctors, trade unionists and pro-Palestinian activists, gathered outside France's foreign ministry in Paris on Thursday to call for his release.

MSF also said its orthopaedic surgeon Mohammed Obeid had been detained in Israel for more than 600 days in difficult conditions and without contact with his family. The organisation said Israeli forces arrested him on October 26, 2024, while he was on duty at Kamal Adwan Hospital. It repeated its call for his immediate and unconditional release.

The organisation said the arbitrary detention, torture and abuse of Palestinian medical staff in Israel was unacceptable. It called for all arbitrarily detained medical personnel to be released immediately and said they should be given adequate medical care and dignified detention conditions while they remain in custody.

MSF said 15 of its colleagues had been killed since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas. The war was sparked by Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. A ceasefire was reached in Gaza in October 2025, but violence has persisted since.