Palestinian healthcare workers are increasingly being attacked and detained amid escalating violence across the West Bank, warns a British charity. Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) said that in the past week alone, a Palestinian nurse was shot and partially paralysed in a settler attack in Sa’ir, north of Hebron, and on Sunday around 10 Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian doctor in Jannatah, east of Bethlehem. They beat him with stones and sticks, smashed his car windows, and broke his hand, according to MAP.
Palestinian nurse Mohammad Nabil Al-Mutawir, 26, said he was stood outside the house he was building in preparation for his upcoming marriage when an Israeli settler shot him in the back. The bullet completely severed his spinal cord. He told WAFA news agency that the injury may have limited his movement but not his resolve.
The ambulance driver says that approximately 10 to 15 settlers started jumping in front of the ambulance and hitting it with stones. 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.” He says that the area he was in – Al-Suhada Street – is known for these kinds of attacks. "We have become accustomed to these situations, but that does not mean they are normal.” He called on the UK government to help protect healthcare workers, amid the surge in attacks: “This is something the UK Government must take seriously and act on." The number of recorded attacks on healthcare in the West Bank rose more than fourfold, from eight in June to 37 in July, according to a report released last week by the World Health Organisation (WHO). There were 98 attacks on healthcare workers from January to July.
This comes as Human Rights Watch (HRW) says that settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank have fully or partially displaced 107 communities since January 2023, alongside unprecedented settlement expansion. It said that the settlers responsible for attacks operate with the “financial, material, and legal backing of the Israeli state.” Attacks by armed settlers often happen alongside Israeli army units or with soldiers standing by, it noted. These attacks on Palestinians have skyrocketed in 2026, with the United Nations warning in July that it had hit an “all-time high”, as the Israeli government continues to approve new settlements.
In early August, the village of Al-Tuba, in the southern Masafer Yatta region, was the target of a violent rampage by Israeli settlers, who set fire to homes in an unprovoked attack. HRW says countries should impose targeted sanctions on those implicated in settler violence, suspend arms transfers to Israel, ban trade with illegal settlements, and consider suspending preferential trade agreements with Israel. MAP says that healthcare workers also face the prospect of arrest for speaking out in support of their colleagues.
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