Pressure is mounting for Israel to release Dr. Khaled Alser, a highly respected Palestinian surgeon who was abducted by Israeli forces during a raid on Gaza’s Nasser Hospital in March. Colleagues say Dr. Alser has been tortured in Israeli custody at Ofer Prison and at the notorious Sde Teiman prison camp in the Negev Desert, where several Israeli soldiers have been accused of raping Palestinian prisoners. Dr. Alser is the lead author of a journal article just published in the British medical journal The Lancet. Democracy Now! spoke to one of the paper’s co-authors, Dr. Simon Fitzgerald, a Brooklyn trauma surgeon.

Dr. Simon Fitzgerald: “Our lead author, Dr. Khaled Alser, remains forcibly disappeared. And it was only about probably the same week that the piece was published that we got word through Israeli Physicians for Human Rights — we were able to get a lawyer into Ofer Prison, where Dr. Khaled Alser is — at least at the time he was interviewed in July was being held — and were able to get testimony that he indeed was abducted by Israeli forces, abused, maltreated, basically tortured.”

Human Rights Watch reports doctors, nurses and paramedics held by Israel have faced widespread torture, including beatings, rape and sexual abuse, forced stress positions, prolonged cuffing, blindfolding and denial of medical care. Click here to see our segment on that report.