Palestinian Medic Abducted From Gaza During Kamal Adwan Hospital Siege, Killed in Israeli Occupation Prison

on 12 February 2026. Posted in slider

Commission of Detainees’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society

February 12, 2026

Ramallah, occupied Palestine – 59-year-old Palestinian paramedic Hatem Ismail Rayyan, who was abducted by Israeli occupation forces from the Gaza Strip on December 27, 2024, during the siege on the Kamal Adwan Hospital, has been martyred in the Naqab (Negev) prison, the Commission of Detainees’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society said on Thursday evening through information obtained from the PA’s General Authority for Civil Affairs.

Rayyan was arrested from the hospital along with his son Muath, who was injured by occupation forces, and remains behind bars. Rayyan had suffered a stroke before his arrest, according to his family. Nevertheless, he insisted on continuing to perform his humanitarian duty as a paramedic until Israeli occupation forces arrested him during the siege imposed on Kamal Adwan Hospital.

That period witnessed a wide-scale arrest campaign targeting many medical personnel, including Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya, who was arrested on the same day as Rayyan. The targeting of medical staff, along with the siege and destruction of hospitals, has been among the most prominent aspects of the occupation’s crime of genocide in Gaza. Since October 2023, there have been three killings of doctors.

The rise in killings and deaths of Palestinian political prisoners at the hands of the occupation’s prison system and personnel over the past three years comes amid accelerated efforts by to legislate a horrific law to execute of Palestinian prisoners, effectively transforming an extrajudicial execution policy into an officially codified and legalized one.

Rayyan is one of more than 100 Palestinian political prisoners killed in Israeli prisons and army camps since the beginning of the genocide, with the identities of 88 of them announced so far. These killings are the result of widespread torture, systematic starvation policies, medical neglect and abuse, sexual assaults, and a series of deprivation, abuse, humiliation, and detention under inhumane conditions—turning prisons into another arena of genocide and marking the most violent phase in the history of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement.

With the martyrdom of detainee Rayyan, the number of identified Palestinian prisoners who have been killed since the start of the genocide has risen to 88 people, including 52 detainees from Gaza. This brings the total number of identified Palestinian prisoner deaths since 1967 to 325, according to records of the relevant institutions.

Many detainees from Gaza who have died remain victims of enforced disappearance, in addition to dozens who were summarily executed in the field. Images of prisoners’ bodies and remains handed over after the ceasefire have provided clear evidence of systematic extrajudicial executions carried out by Israeli forces against prisoners.

The Commission and the PPS added that, according to available data as of the beginning of February 2026, approximately half of the total number of political prisoners in Israeli prisons are currently held without charge or trial, either under arbitrary administrative detention orders or under the classification of so-called “unlawful combatants.” The total number of Palestinians in Israeli occupation prisons exceeds 9,300, including 3,358 “administrative detainees” and 1,249 classified as “unlawful combatants.”

In conclusion, the Commission of Detainees’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society hold hold the occupation authorities fully responsible for the martyrdom of detainee Hatem Rayyan. They renewed their call on the international human rights system to take effective and urgent measures to hold Israeli leaders accountable for war crimes committed against prisoners and the Palestinian people, and to end the state of impunity provided by the United States and international powers to the Israeli occupation system over decades—an impunity that has reached its peak during the genocide, despite overwhelming evidence of its commission against the Palestinian people in Gaza, in addition to war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against prisoners and detainees.