Rambam denies claims Arab staff mistreated wounded soldier after family sounds alarm

Stav Levaton is a military reporter for The Times of Israel

The Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa on Sunday denied allegations of malpractice, after relatives of a soldier recently injured in Lebanon accused the hospital’s Arab staff of mistreating their loved one.

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The accusations were quickly echoed by far-right politicians, while Arab MKs hit back, saying the incident was another example of widespread racism against Arab-Israelis who are deeply integrated in Israel’s health care system.

One of the accusers, Yehoshua Shani, chairman of the right-wing Gvura Forum for families of soldiers killed fighting in Gaza and father of the late Cpt. Ori Mordechay Shani, is the uncle of one of four soldiers who were seriously wounded last week after being hit by an explosive device in the southern Lebanon town of Majdal Zoun.

Shani took to X on Sunday to accuse the hospital’s night-shift nursing staff, which he described as “Arabic-speakers,” of depriving his nephew, Eitan, of water and turning him over in bed “like a sardine,” allegedly slamming his head into the bed.

According to Shani, Eitan had been sedated and on a ventilator until Saturday. That night, hospital staff asked family members to leave, as is customary in intensive care units.

But Shani portrayed the routine measure as alarming because the soldiers were left in the care solely of Arabic-speaking medical workers.

“At a certain point, all the families were removed from the department, and the doors were locked,” Shani recounted. “You need to understand the situation: Four seriously injured IDF soldiers, who had just returned from combat in Lebanon, are left alone behind locked doors, without their family members, while the entire staff on shift speaks Arabic.”

David Chesterman, the brother of the same wounded soldier, made similar allegations on Instagram.

“At night, a new shift arrived at the unit, all of them Arabic-speakers,” Chesterman wrote in a series of pictures of hospital equipment. “They took all the families out and locked the doors.”

Chesterman said that after staff refused to allow the family to enter his brother’s hospital room, he forced his way in.

“I broke down the door to make sure he was okay. He wasn’t. He begged for water and no one was around,” Chesterman claimed. “He whispered to me that they had brutally turned him over in bed ‘like a sardine,’ his head was slammed against the bed and no one cared.”

The accusations were quickly seized upon by far-right and populist politicians. drew intervention

Defense Minister Israel Katz ordering the Israel Defense Forces to investigate the incident in coordination with all relevant parties.

“I view with great seriousness the testimonies that have been published regarding the behavior toward wounded IDF soldiers in the hospital,” Katz said. “The heroic IDF soldiers who were injured while defending the State of Israel deserve the best and most dedicated care and respectful treatment for themselves and their families.”

“I have instructed the IDF to immediately and thoroughly examine all the allegations that have been raised with the hospital and the relevant parties,” he added.

Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir also condemned the alleged mistreatment and called for an immediate investigation.

“If the disturbing testimonies coming from Rambam hospital are true, this is a grave scandal that should trouble every citizen in Israel,” Ben Gvir wrote on X.

“These testimonies demand an immediate, thorough, and un-whitewashed investigation, including an examination of whether in some cases this constitutes harassment on a nationalist basis,” which is classified by Israeli security bodies as terrorism, he said.

Rambam, for its part, rejected the allegations following its own review of the incident, writing in a statement that “all patients, and certainly IDF soldiers, receive high-quality, professional care from a skilled and experienced medical team.”

“We take every allegation with the utmost seriousness and thoroughly investigate complaints of this kind. After reviewing the incident, we reject the claims that the patient was treated inappropriately,” the hospital concluded.

The hospital’s response, however, prompted criticism from some of its own Arab staff members, who told the Haaretz daily they were disappointed it had not publicly defended them against what they viewed as broader accusations against Arab medical workers.

“Ultimately, this is an attack on all Arab medical staff,” one medical professional was quoted as saying. “If there isn’t unequivocal, clear and public support even from the hospital, it’s insulting and disappointing.”

Rambam Director General Dr. Michal Mekel reportedly sought to reassure employees internally, sending an email to staff condemning “any attempt to generalize or divide staff members on the basis of language, origin or identity.”

But Arab employees maintained that the absence of a similar public statement was a source of frustration.

The controversy also drew a response from Ayman Odeh, head of the mostly Arab Hadash-Ta’al party, who voiced support for Rambam’s staff and sharply criticized Katz and Ben Gvir over their comments.

“Rambam hospital in Haifa, my city, treats human beings without the question of who they are or what their faith is being a condition for treating them,” he wrote on X.

“It’s no wonder that Katz and Ben Gvir, two wretched clowns who have failed time and again in everything they’ve done in their lives, are now trying to strike precisely at what this hospital represents: professionalism instead of incitement, partnership instead of racism, and humanity instead of barbarism,” Odeh added.

“Your work, your professionalism, and the partnership you represent are the best answer for every Kahanist,” he wrote.

MK Ahmad Tibi of the Ta’al party, who is a gynecologist by profession, shared a post recounting how a woman had refused to have him deliver her baby when he worked at Hadassah Hospital Mount Scopus in Jerusalem.

“There were always racists and there was always a solution. Be a human being,” he wrote.

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