Rights group files ICC complaint against Israeli medical officials over torture of Palestinian detainees

The Hind Rajab Foundation filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Israeli medical officials over torture and mistreatment of Palestinian detainees, Israeli media reported Saturday, Anadolu reports.

The complaint targets the Israeli Medical Association, Health Ministry officials and medical personnel over abuses at the Sde Teiman military detention facility in southern Israel.

According to the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, the Brussels-based rights group submitted the complaint to the ICC prosecutor under Article 15 of the Rome Statute.

The foundation said that Israeli medical personnel and officials were involved in practices amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

– Allegations of systematic mistreatment

Since October 2023, the Sde Teiman military base in Israel’s southern Negev desert has been used to hold thousands of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, most of them civilians, including men, women, children, older people, journalists and health and humanitarian workers.

The foundation said that detainees were classified as “unlawful combatants,” a designation it described as a means of denying them basic legal protections and holding them without charge or trial.

The complaint said Israel’s Health Ministry established a medical facility at Sde Teiman shortly after Oct. 7, 2023.

According to the foundation, medical personnel were required to sign documents placing them under military police authority rather than the army’s Medical Corps.

The complaint seeks investigations into officials from Israel’s health and defense ministries, medical personnel, hospital administrators and the Israeli Medical Association.

Those named include former health ministers Moshe Arbel and Uriel Buso, association chairman Zion Hagay, director general Leah Wapner and ethics board chairman Yosef Walfisch.

– Detainees restrained during medical treatment

The foundation said a Health Ministry directive issued on Dec. 19, 2023, required medical personnel to treat detainees while they were handcuffed and blindfolded.

According to the complaint, the directive also permitted forced medical treatment without adequate safeguards.

Medical staff were allegedly instructed not to disclose their names and to sign medical records using only their professional titles.

The foundation argued that these practices obscured individual responsibility and hindered documentation of injuries.

– Amputations, surgeries without adequate pain relief

The foundation cited accounts from Israeli medical workers and former Palestinian detainees describing abuses at Sde Teiman.

According to the complaint, a doctor wrote to Israeli authorities in April 2024 that two detainees had undergone leg amputations within one week because of injuries caused by shackling.

The doctor reportedly described shackling as routine at the facility.

The foundation also cited medical workers who told the Associated Press they had witnessed surgeries performed without adequate pain relief.

One account described an elderly detainee screaming and shaking during leg surgery.

Other workers reported detainees being blindfolded, forced to wear diapers and restrained by all four limbs to hospital beds.

The foundation said at least 29 detainees had died at Sde Teiman by November 2025 because of physical violence, medical neglect or both.

– Medical association accused of complicity

The complaint accused the Israeli Medical Association of helping legitimize torture and mistreatment at the facility.

The foundation said the association responded to allegations of medical complicity with general reminders about professional ethics rather than sufficient investigative action.

It also said findings from an internal Health Ministry ethical assessment following a visit to Sde Teiman were not publicly released.

“Instead of investigating the allegations, leaders of the association publicly defended the medical care provided at Sde Teiman,” the foundation said.

Established in February 2024 and based in Brussels, the Hind Rajab Foundation has pursued legal cases in several countries against Israeli officials and military personnel over alleged violations in Gaza.

Since October 2023, Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians and injured over 175,000 others, according to Palestinian figures.