The head of the Gaza Strip’s largest hospital said on Monday that Israel had “tortured” him after he was released from more than seven months of detention.
According to Israeli officials, Mohammed Abu Salmiya, director of Al-Shifa Hospital, was among dozens of Palestinians who were released and sent back to Gaza for treatment.
Abu Salmiya said he and other prisoners had been subjected to “severe torture” in Israeli jails since they were detained following the October 7 cross-border attacks by Hamas.
According to Abu Salmiya, “Many prisoners died in interrogation centers and were deprived of food and medicine.” He said he still has a broken thumb.
“For two months, no prisoner had to eat more than one roti per day,” he said.
“The detainees were physically and mentally abused.”
The medical chief said no charges were ever filed against him.
Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence agency said it had decided on the release in coordination with the Israeli military “to free up space in detention centers.”
The agency said it “opposes the release of terrorists” who took part in attacks on Israeli civilians “so it was decided to release some of the Gaza detainees who pose a lesser threat”.
However, commenting on X (formerly Twitter), National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir called the release of Abu Salmiya “along with dozens of other terrorists” a “security abandonment.”
The Israeli military detained Abu Salmiya during several raids on al-Shifa.
Emotional reunion
The Israeli military has accused Hamas of using hospitals in the Gaza Strip as cover for military operations. It has raided Al-Shifa and other hospitals, and says it has found tunnels and other infrastructure.
The Hamas group, which has ruled the territory since 2007, denies the allegations.
Al-Shifa Hospital has been reduced to rubble by repeated raids since Israel began its assault on Gaza following Hamas attacks on 7 October.
A medical source said that upon arriving back in Gaza, five detainees were admitted to Al-Aqsa Hospital, near the town of Khan Younis, and the others were sent to hospitals in Khan Younis.
An AFP reporter in Deir al-Balah saw some detainees having emotional reunions with their families.
Abu Salmiya was not the only top doctor detained.
The Gaza European Hospital in Khan Younis said the head of its orthopedics unit, Bassam Miqdad, was among those released on Monday.
In May, Palestinian rights groups said a senior surgeon at Al-Shifa died after being detained in an Israeli prison. The Israeli military said it had no information about the death.
The war began with a Hamas attack on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP count based on Israeli data.
Israel’s retaliatory strikes have killed at least 37,900 people, the majority of them civilians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)