“Like a nightmare”: Gaza doctor released after more than 6 months in Israeli prisons

Palestinian surgeon Khaled Al Serr was working at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on March 25 when he was arrested and detained during a raid by Israeli troops.

For months, his family had no knowledge of his whereabouts until other detained healthcare workers were released and informed Al Serra's loved ones of his whereabouts.

After spending more than six months in Israeli custody, the 32-year-old doctor was released from Ofer military prison in the occupied West Bank on September 29 without any charges or trial.

“It was like a nightmare,” Al Serr told CBC News of his detention two days after being released and allowed back into Gaza.

The doctor claims that he was tortured and humiliated in detention, and that soldiers and prison guards denied him adequate access to medical care.

“I was lucky to (return) to my family with my whole body… (that) I didn't lose my feet,” he said. “Some prisoners were infected by dogs that bit them on the leg, and some were infected by health care negligence.”

He said that when Israeli forces entered the hospital, staff tried to clean it up and reorganize it so they could readmit patients. The facility was closed in February as a result of, among other things, previous attack which devastated a large part of the first floor and deprived it of supplies.

145 doctors still in Israeli custody: Gaza Ministry of Health

Al Serra's experience has been shared by hundreds of healthcare workers in Gaza. According to the local Ministry of Health, approximately 300 healthcare workers from the Gaza Strip remain in custody after being arbitrarily detained by Israeli forces while performing their duties. At least 145 of them are doctors – roughly seven percent of the estimated 2,110 doctors remaining in Gaza. International human rights groups say raids on healthcare facilities and detentions of medical staff are having a devastating impact on an already fragile healthcare system.

Amnesty International has done this repeatedly since June called calls on Israeli forces to release Al Serra, pointing out that his fate and whereabouts remained largely unknown to his family until July.

The global human rights group says Al Serr was detained along with other medical staff during a raid on Nasser Hospital and called on the military to reveal the whereabouts of all Palestinian health workers who it said were “forcibly disappeared.”

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) admitted arresting medical personnel during military operations in Gaza, but did not say exactly how many or provide details about Al Serra's detention.

“In light of the extensive exploitation of medical facilities (by Hamas), individuals in Gaza, including medical teams, have been detained and interrogated based on intelligence indicating their involvement in terrorist activities,” it said in a statement to CBC News. Hamas has denied such allegations.

“Those found to be unrelated are released after questioning,” the IDF added.

She said she found weapons and medicine with the names and photos of Israeli hostages during a February raid on Nasser's hospital. It announced that it had detained “hundreds of terrorists and other suspected terrorists who were hiding in the hospital, some of them posing as medical personnel.”

The IDF also aired footage shot by its soldiers that it said showed tunnels containing weapons under some of the hospitals it raided.

“Unfortunately, Hamas continues to put Gaza's most defenseless citizens at grave risk by cynically using hospitals for terror purposes,” it said.

Asked by CBC News whether the IDF could confirm that 300 health care workers were in Israeli custody, the military did not respond.

Punishment, humiliation in Israeli custody: Al Serr

Al Serr said he was in custody for the first five days. was questioned about his work at the hospital, why he was in the hospital, and his whereabouts on October 7, 2023, during the Hamas-led attacks on Israel that killed 1,200 people.

He said that before he was taken to prison, he was placed in a shipping container with about 100 other inmates, where he was beaten and left without medical care. Al Serr said he was not allowed to receive treatment even though he had difficulty breathing and was coughing up blood.

She developed a skin rash with purulent bumps and redness on her arms.

“They left us to suffer from any disease,” he said. “It's part of the punishment in prison.”

He then said he was transferred to Sde Teiman, an Israeli military base in the Negev Desert now used as a detention camp, where he claims he was forced to sit with his hands cuffed and was not allowed to move, speak or look at anyone. He says he was blindfolded and handcuffed 24 hours a day, and the soldiers allegedly mocked and cursed him.

WATCH | Another former prisoner describes in detail the forms of punishment in a prison turned into a military base:

Says the man pictured in the viral photo in an Israeli prison

A photo of Ibrahim Salem from Sde Teiman prison in Israel's Negev desert has gone viral after being leaked to CNN and spread on social media. Salem claims that standing at the fence with his hands raised, as shown in the photo, was a form of punishment he suffered during his 52-day detention at the military base-turned-prison.

He said he stayed there for about 80 days, not knowing why he was being held, before he was taken to Ofer Prison, not knowing what day or month it was.

“I experienced many punishments and beatings from the soldiers there without any charges being filed,” Al Serr said.

“As a doctor, I had no special treatment because all or most of the people there were… professors and… teachers, doctors, nurses. Everyone is treated equally there, which is a punishment and humiliation from Israeli soldiers.”

The family did not know whether Al Serr was alive

Meanwhile, for many months his fate and whereabouts were unknown to his family.

His father, Abdul Karim Al Serr, who was in Rafah while his son was being held, said he initially thought he had lost his son in the airstrike. However, when family members failed to find him among the dead, he was considered missing.

The elder Al Serr did not know about the raid until a nurse who was arrested along with the doctor told him that his son was in Israeli custody and alive. Then, the elder Al Serr said, he will ask every person released from Israeli prisons about his son, hoping to get information about his well-being.

“We looked into it. Between sadness, pain and suffering, (other prisoners) told us what they experienced in prison,” he said.

When his son was released after six months in detention, Al Serr said he had no idea. He said he was in Khan Younis, in front of a makeshift house in the rubble, when his son approached him, but his father did not recognize him.

“I was surprised. I looked at him. Who's that? It's not Khaled,” he said.

He said his son lost 50 to 60 kilograms in prison and looked “half his size.”

“I didn't think he would be fired, even though he is a doctor. Everyone should respect and appreciate him – friend and foe alike,” his father said.

“Respect that he is a doctor. If a Jew (patient) comes to him, he will cure him. If a Christian comes to him, he will heal him. If a Muslim comes to him, he will cure him.”

Worker arrests put strain on a fragile healthcare system

Amnesty International said the detainees, including the younger Al Serr, were being held without means of communication “beyond the protection of the law, in conditions amounting to enforced disappearance” that violated international human rights law.

Amnesty International cited Israel's illegal combatant law, which gives the country the right to detain in Gaza anyone suspected of participating in hostilities against it or posing a security threat. He alleged that Israel was using the law to “arbitrarily” detain Palestinian civilians without due process, calling for its repeal and the release of those detained under it.

“Since October 7, 2023, and especially since the start of ground operations in Gaza in late October, Israeli authorities have used (the law) to detain thousands of Palestinians without charge or trial” – Amnesty International he wrote in June on its website.

As of September 20, since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, Israeli forces have killed a total of 595 health care workers in Gaza and the West Bank. Observation of health care workers.

According to Gaza health authorities, the arrests of health workers are further straining Gaza's fragile health care system, which has endured more than a year of war that has destroyed infrastructure and injured at least 97,590 people and killed more than 42,000 people as a result of Israeli bombing.

Dr. Ahmed Al-Farra, head of pediatrics at Nasser Hospital, said Gaza's hospitals were in a “catastrophic situation.”

Al-Farra said hospitals lack supplies, equipment and fuel to generate electricity, in addition to the unsanitary conditions and overcrowding they face.

Al-Farra said the lack of clean water and the rampant spread of disease are contributing to the increasing number of deaths.