The head of Gaza’s largest hospital Mohammed Abu Salmiya has accused Israel of abuse and torture after being released from a seven-month detention on Monday.
Al-Shifa hospital Director Mohammed Abu Salmiya, who was detained by Israeli forces since November, is welcomed by relatives, in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza Strip, Palestine, July 1, 2024. (AFP Photo)
The Al-Shifa hospital director was among more than 50 Palestinians released and returned to Gaza for treatment, according to an Israeli minister and a medical source in the besieged territory.
Salmiya said he was put through “severe torture” during his detention, which left him with a broken thumb.
“Prisoners are subjected to all kinds of torture,” he told a press conference. “Several inmates died in interrogation centers and were deprived of food and medicine.”
“For two months no prisoner ate more than a loaf of bread a day,” said Salmiya.
“Detainees were subjected to physical and psychological humiliation.”
The medical chief said no charge had ever been made against him.
Israeli forces detained Salmiya during one of several raids on Al-Shifa.
Salmiya and the other freed detainees crossed back into Gaza from Israel just east of Khan Younis, a medical source at the Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Five detainees were admitted to Al-Aqsa hospital and the others were sent to hospitals in Khan Younis, the source added.
An AFP correspondent at Deir al-Balah saw some detainees in emotional reunions with their families.
The military said it was “checking” reports about the release.
However, Israel’s far-right extremist National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir confirmed the operation when he posted on X, formerly Twitter, that Salmiya’s release “with dozens of other … is security abandonment.”
Israel’s military accuses Hamas of using hospitals in the Gaza Strip as a cover for military operations. It raided Al-Shifa and other hospitals and claimed to have found tunnels and other infrastructure, without providing any substantial evidence.
The Palestinian resistance group, which has run the territory since 2007, denies the allegations.
The Gaza European hospital in Khan Younis said the head of its orthopedic unit, Bassam Miqdad, was also among those freed Monday.
In May, Palestinian rights groups said a senior Al-Shifa surgeon had died in an Israeli jail after being detained. The Israeli army said it was unaware of the death.
The war was triggered by Hamas’s Oct. 7 incursion which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
Israel’s genocidal war, in comparison, has killed nearly 38,000 people, mostly women and children, according to data from the Gazan Health Ministry.
