MAP warns Palestinian healthcare workers face mounting attacks amid escalating West Bank violence

This week alone, a Palestinian nurse, Mohammed Nabil Al-Mutawwar, was shot and left partially paralysed in an attack in Sa’ir, north of Hebron. Last Sunday, around 10 Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian doctor Majed Alyan Dwayat in Jannatah, east of Bethlehem, beating him with stones, smashing his car windows, and breaking his hand.

Yesterday, Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) ambulance while it was transporting a patient from the Tel Rumeida area of Hebron.

In response to the growing risks facing healthcare workers in the West Bank, MAP recently provided protective equipment, including bulletproof vests and helmets, to PRCS, its partner.

A PRCS' ambulance driver and paramedic, who was in the ambulance during the attack, said: “On our way back, around five settler families, approximately 10 to 15 settlers, were in the street. They began jumping in front of the ambulance and hitting it with stones. This happened in front of their parents and in front of Israeli soldiers. They continued hitting the ambulance for around 10 to 15 minutes. I could not reverse because there were cars behind me.

"I speak Hebrew, so I was able to communicate with one of the soldiers. He told us that the only way forward was for an Israeli military jeep to drive in front of us, with our ambulance following very closely behind. It seems like the soldiers had been instructed not to stop the settlers.

"Al-Shuhada Street is known for these kinds of attacks. It is known that ambulances entering the area may be attacked. Thank God, no one was physically injured this time.

"I really want to continue saving lives, but I also have to think about my family and my children. Imagine if I had lost control of the ambulance while they were throwing stones and hitting us. The settlers’ parents were standing nearby, and they were carrying weapons. If I had lost control of the ambulance, I fear that they would have shot at us.

"We have become accustomed to these situations, but that does not mean they are normal. I have two sons and two daughters, and I think about them every time I go to work.

Healthcare workers are not only being subjected to attacks – many face the real risk of detention. On Tuesday in Ramallah, Israeli forces detained Palestinian obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr Dima Mohammed Amin Barakat after raiding her home. Her arrest comes amid the recent detention of fellow Palestinian doctor, Dr Mazen Al-Rantisi, known in the West Bank as the “doctor of the poor” for providing low-fee services to lower income patients.

Dr Dima had spoken publicly about the case in the days before her detention, raising concerns about the risks faced by Palestinian healthcare workers who speak out in support of their colleagues.

Dr Dima’s detention comes amid a wider and growing pattern of attacks, detention and intimidation targeting Palestinian healthcare workers – and silencing of those who speak out in support. The scale of this repression is stark: since October 2023, 314 healthcare personnel have been detained or arrested in the West Bank and a further 324 in Gaza, according to Health Cluster data.

Reports from Palestinian rights groups and UN bodies paint a deeply disturbing picture of what happens to many Palestinians, including healthcare workers, once they are detained, with accounts of severe abuse, torture, sexual violence, medical negligence, and inhumane conditions in detention.

Aseel Baidoun, MAP’s Deputy Director of Advocacy and Communications in the West Bank, said: “We are rapidly reaching a point of no return. The shooting of a Palestinian nurse, the attack on a doctor, and the detention of another doctor within days of each other show just how quickly state-backed violence is becoming normalised in the West Bank.

"Palestinian healthcare workers are being terrorised simply for doing their jobs. They are being forced to work in conditions that increasingly resemble a battlefield, where the threat of attack, detention and imprisonment is ever-present. Instead of focusing on saving lives, they are having to work under the constant fear that they themselves could be shot, attacked or tortured in an Israeli prison.

MAP calls on the UK government to take urgent steps to protect healthcare and address state-backed settlement expansion and settler violence, including:

• Ban all UK trade with illegal Israeli settlements
• Suspend the UK–Israel Trade and Partnership Agreement until Israel ends all violations of international law.
• Ensure accountability for those responsible for violations of international law, including settlement expansion and attacks on health care.
• Publicly set out the UK government’s response to, and plan to implement, the ICJ’s July 2024 Advisory Opinion

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• MAP recently provided protective equipment, including bulletproof vests and helmets, to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS), in response to the growing risks facing healthcare workers.
• MAP is currently providing four Ministry of Health urgent care centres and primary healthcare centres in Nilin, Silwad, Beita, and Yabad with trauma equipment and emergency supplies.
• MAP is also procuring two ICU ambulances and one NICU ambulance for PRCS, alongside an emergency response tuk-tuk for Beita Municipality and establishing trauma stabilisation points in Burqa, Ras Karkar, Um Safa, and Dir Ammar to provide urgent care where checkpoints and movement restrictions delay access to hospitals.
• In May and June 2026, MAP delivered 10 first aid training courses across 10 targeted areas in Nablus, Jenin and Qalqilia through its UNICEF-funded mobile clinic. More than 150 participants were trained and 150 first aid kits distributed.

Medical Aid for Palestinians works for a future where every Palestinian has access to a comprehensive, effective and locally-led system of healthcare, and the full realisation of their rights to health and dignity. We have worked for more than 40 years in the occupied Palestinian territory and in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.