A 54-year-old Palestinian gynecologist, Dima Amin, has remained in Israeli custody after a dramatic pre-dawn raid that saw dozens of Israeli soldiers forcefully abduct her from her Ramallah home over an alleged inflammatory social media post, triggering a cardiac event that required emergency medical intervention and sparking widespread condemnation from human rights groups.
The raid unfolded at 2 a.m. last Tuesday in Ramallah’s al-Tira neighborhood, where soldiers broke the main entrance lock of Amin’s home before catching the doctor and her husband, Haider Abu Ghosh, completely off guard. According to Abu Ghosh, Israeli forces did not conduct a standard, documented search of the property: soldiers immediately confirmed Amin’s identity when they found her, placed her under arrest, and ordered her to prepare to leave, while holding Abu Ghosh in a separate room to isolate him from the interaction. He told Middle East Eye that he never witnessed the moments his wife was taken into custody, but it is understood soldiers, including a female service member, led her outside and restrained her with tight cuffs.
Within hours of her arrest, Amin developed severe chest pain and required an emergency catheterization procedure. Israeli outlet Haaretz confirmed the incident amounted to a cardiac episode brought on by the excessive force used to restrain her; tight handcuffs left permanent-looking marks on her wrists that were still visible days after her arrest, according to reports.
More than 24 hours after the procedure, Amin was transferred back to Israel’s Moscovia Detention Center, even as her family was denied access to full medical records of her treatment. Her family says they have not been able to independently confirm Israeli reports that she was treated at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital. A follow-up court hearing following her return to custody extended her detention until the following Monday, with Israeli officials confirming the arrest stems from social media posts Israeli intelligence has labeled as incitement.
Amin’s two children, who currently study in Germany and Spain, have only been able to get updates on their mother’s condition via phone calls to their father, and the entire family says the uncertainty around her health and well-being has been crippling. “The absence of a family member, without any means of communication, even without a health issue, is absolutely devastating for us, and it’s deeply distressing that we can’t know anything about her,” Abu Ghosh told reporters.
Amin’s case is far from an isolated incident, human rights organizations say, pointing to a broader pattern of escalating abuse and systemic rights violations against Palestinian detainees held in Israeli custody since October 2023. Leading Israeli human rights group B’Tselem confirmed via Amin’s legal representation that the doctor remained tightly restrained throughout her transfer to hospital and treatment, with visible restraint marks clearly visible on her wrists during a recent military court hearing.
B’Tselem director Yuli Novak noted that the abuse of Palestinian detainees has become institutionalized in recent months, describing the entire Israeli prison system as having been reorganized to enable “systematic violations, including physical violence, humiliation, denial of medical treatment, and inhumane living conditions.” Novak emphasized that Amin’s arrest and treatment encapsulates this pattern of brutality: as of mid-2024, at least 90 Palestinian detainees have died in Israeli custody, and more than 9,300 Palestinians remain imprisoned by Israel. “A woman and a doctor of her age suffers a heart attack and undergoes a catheterisation while in Israeli custody, yet she is returned to detention and remains imprisoned,” Novak said. “This is what the policy of intimidating the civilian population and normalising torture and ill-treatment looks like.”
Palestinian advocacy groups add that targeting Amin, a medical professional, fits into a wider campaign of repression against Palestinian health workers. The Palestinian NGO Network says the arrest is part of a consistent pattern of attacks on humanitarian and community infrastructure across the occupied Palestinian territories, noting that Amin is one of 250 detained Palestinian medical professionals, most of whom are from the besieged Gaza Strip. Other detained health workers include Dr. Mazen al-Rantisi and Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, while Dr. Jamila Abu Dahou was only recently released after being taken into custody.
The group holds Israeli authorities fully accountable for this deliberate targeting of the health sector, calling for immediate international intervention to secure the release of all detained medical personnel and end what the network describes as ongoing violations by the occupying power against Palestinian healthcare.
The crackdown extends specifically to Palestinian female prisoners, who face increasingly harsh conditions in Israeli detention. According to the Palestinian Prisoners Club, more than 90 Palestinian women are currently held at Israel’s Damon Prison, including pregnant people, minors, and detainees with pre-existing chronic health conditions. The group says prison administrators have imposed extreme restrictions that deny female detainees access to critical medical care, adequate nutrition, personal items including clothing, and other basic human rights.
The Prisoners’ Media Office confirmed Saturday that between July 29 and August 18, Palestinian female prisoners at Damon Prison were subjected to seven repeated invasive raids and repressive operations over just 21 days, as part of a systematic escalation of abuse against the detainee population. The office documented a range of violations during these operations, including forced entry into detainee living quarters, verbal and physical abuse, beatings, excessive handcuffing, enforced isolation, and forcible removal of prisoners to the prison yard during raids.