Israeli forces kidnap Gaza nurse two months after abducting her doctor father

Israeli special forces abducted a Palestinian nurse while working at a medical facility in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, just months after her prominent doctor father Marwan al-Hams was captured.

According to local sources citing family, Tasneem al-Hams was working in al-Mawasi, a so-called Israeli-designated "safe zone", when Israeli forces captured her while the driver of their ambulance was wounded in front of a Red Cross field hospital.

The Palestinian nurse faces the same fate as her father, who is the director of Abu Youssef al-Najjar Hospital and spokesperson for the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza.

On 21 July, Marwan al-Hams, who also oversees field hospitals in the Gaza Strip, was on his way to visit the Red Cross facility in northern Rafah when undercover Israeli soldiers opened fire, killing one person and wounding another civilian, before abducting him.

The person killed was a local journalist who had been conducting an interview with the well-known doctor at the time of the attack.

"This cowardly act targeted one of the most prominent humanitarian and medical voices who has conveyed to the world the pain of starving children, the suffering of wounded patients deprived of medication, and the cries of mothers at hospital gates," the ministry said in a statement at the time.

"It clearly reflects a deliberate intention to silence the truth and obscure the suffering of an entire people enduring one of the worst health and humanitarian disasters."

Several rights groups and medical organisations condemned the targeting and detention of Marwan al-Hams.

Al-Dameer Association for Human Rights in Gaza revealed that he is being held in Ashkelon prison. According to Alaa al-Skafi, the director of the organisation, the doctor was imprisoned after he was shot in the foot during his arrest. 

Israeli special forces abduct director of hospital in Gaza

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Marwan al-Hams, like many Palestinian medical personel captured by Israel, is denied legal representation, which Skafi says is a clear violation of legal and human rights.

The Israeli military has been accused of systematically dismantling Gaza's healthcare system through repeated strikes on hospitals, medical personnel and ambulances during its 20-month-long assault on the strip.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, over 1,500 health workers have been killed and more than 360 detained since the war began.

In Israeli detention, Palestinians have reported widespread and severe mistreatment since 7 October 2023, abuses that leading rights groups describe as systematic crimes.

Reports detail starvation, medical neglect, physical violence, humiliation, sexual assault, theft and unprecedented levels of mass solitary confinement

Healthcare professionals have been especially targeted in these prison systems, with one report by Physicians for Human Rights Israel describing their treatment as "human rights violations".