Al-Shifa Hospital head and other freed prisoners speak of horror inside Israeli jails

By Maryam Qarehgozlou

Dr. Muhammad Abu Salmiya, director of Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, who was freed from an Israeli prison after being held without charge for months, has recounted harrowing and horrifying experience.

According to the head of the largest medical complex in the besieged and bruised Palestinian territory, he and other Palestinians held in Israeli jails faced “severe” torture and abuse “on a daily basis.”

At a news conference shortly after his release on Monday, Dr. Abu Salmiya said Israeli forces “have no regard for red lines” and are treating Palestinian detainees “as if they are inanimate objects.”

He was freed along with a group of nearly 55 other Palestinians arrested and detained illegally by the Israeli regime since it launched its genocidal war on the Gaza Strip in October last year.

Dr. Abu Salmiya was abducted by Israeli forces on November 23 along with several other medical staff members after they forcefully evacuated the al-Shifa Hospital following a devastating military raid.

He said Palestinian prisoners were going through “tragic conditions” due to the lack of food, drink and torture, enduring “daily physical and psychological humiliation” in captivity and subjected to beatings using batons and dogs.

“We were subjected to severe torture, and Israeli forces stormed the prisoners’ cells and assaulted them on an almost daily basis,” he was quoted as saying after his release on Monday.

“Many prisoners were killed in the interrogation cells, and we left behind thousands of detainees held by Israeli forces.”

Tortured, battered, abused

The prominent Palestinian medic elaborated that the Israeli medical staff who are supposed to provide healthcare to Palestinians held in Israeli prisons are beating, battering and torturing them.

“Israeli doctors and nurses beat and torture Palestinian prisoners and treat the bodies of detainees as if they were inanimate objects,” he stated

According to Abu Salmiya, due to poor medical care, some diabetic detainees’ limbs were amputated. In addition to medical negligence, he said the mistreatment included food deprivation.

“Every prisoner held by Israeli forces lost about 30kg (66 pounds) of weight, with food being denied,” he said, referring to the gravity of the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Israeli regime prisons.

“For two months, none of the prisoners ate more than one loaf of bread a day.”

Palestinian detainees, Abu Salmiya added, are not allowed to meet any lawyers or any other person representing international humanitarian or human rights institutions.

What Dr. Abu Salmiya said of torture and abuse inside Israeli prisons and detention facilities matched the accounts of other Palestinians held illegally in Israeli concentration camps.

Dr Bassam Miqdad, the head of the Orthopedic Department at the European Hospital, who was also freed along with Dr. Abu Salmiya also spoke of brutal torture and abuse inside Israeli prisons.

“I could write books about this matter,” he said.

According to Miqdad, the conditions in Ofer prison where his colleague Dr Al-Barsh, the head of the orthopedic department at Al-Shifa Hospital, was executed earlier were “horrible.”

He also spoke about the sexual abuse that the prisoners faced at the hands of the “criminal Zionists.”

Miqdad was abducted by Israeli soldiers in January and moved between Asqalan, Ofer, and Nafah prisons.

Other prisoners who were freed on Monday also spoke about the brutal torture they were subjected to by the regime forces in dark and terrifying dungeons.

A ‘fascist’ regime

Palestinian resistance movement Hamas in a statement said the recently-released detainees’ “harrowing testimonies” affirm the “criminal behavior of the “fascist” occupying regime.

In a statement issued on Monday, it said the Israeli fascist regime “challenges all humanitarian laws and commits daily war crimes without any intervention.”

“These ongoing crimes against unarmed civilians in the Gaza Strip, which have exceeded all limits, and the suffering of prisoners in the occupation’s jails and detainees in its terrorist army’s detention centers, are carried out by decision of the [occupying regime] as part of its fascist policy to target and annihilate our Palestinian people,” the statement read.

The resistance group added that the policy is “fully supported by the American administration, which conspires with blatant violations of international laws, occurring in full view and earshot of the entire world.”

Since October 2023, when Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza, more than 37,900 Palestinians have been killed and thousands of others languish in detention centers.

The UN humanitarian agency, OCHA, in a statement on Monday, said that the number of “Palestinians from Gaza who have been detained by the Israeli military” since October 7, 2023 “remains unknown.”

Israelis furious over Salmiya’s release

Dr. Abu Salmiya was arrested after the Israeli military claimed that Hamas was using al-Shifa Hospital as its “main operation base,” which Hamas and hospital administrators rejected outright.

Israel has failed to substantiate its claims like it couldn’t justify the bombing of other hospitals in Gaza.

After more than seven months of captivity, Dr. Abu Salmiya and other Palestinians were released because Israeli prisons were full, according to Israel’s notorious military agency, Shin Bet.

However, his release sparked outrage and prompted condemnation from Israeli political figures, which once again exposed the internal rift and divisions within the regime. 

Benny Gantz, a former member of Israel’s war cabinet who quit last month in a row over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plans for Gaza, condemned the release of the Palestinian doctor, and called for the dismissal of “whoever made the decision.”

Israeli military affairs minister Itamar Ben-Gvir also called for the dismissal of the head of the Shin Bet, saying Dr. Abu Salmiya’s release was “security negligence.”

He said Netanyahu has to stop war minister Yoav Gallant and the head of the Shin Bet from conducting an independent policy contrary to the position of the war cabinet.

Netanyahu’s office in a statement passed said the decision to release the prisoners followed discussions at the High Court on a petition against the detention of prisoners at the Sde Teiman detention facility.

“The identity of the released prisoners is determined independently by security officials based on their professional considerations,” read the statement.

Netanyahu also ordered an immediate inquiry into the release of Palestinian prisoners from Gaza, including Dr. Abu Salmiya.

Israel Prison Service later announced that the lack of space in Israeli prisons isn’t the reason behind the release of Dr. Abu Salmiya and his fellow prisoners.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid also said in a post on X on Monday that Dr. Abu Salmiya’s release is the “direct continuation of the lawlessness and dysfunction” of the Israeli cabinet.

Dr. Abu Salmiya, however, said he was “astonished” by Israeli officials’ claims saying they were unaware of his release.

He said no charge had ever been leveled against him and he was released “in an official manner.”

“The occupation did not bring any charges against me despite holding a trial three times, which means that they arrested me for political reasons,” he noted.

‘Abu Salmiya’s life in danger’

The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor expressed fear for the life of Dr. Abu Salmiya after “a storm of violent reactions” from Israeli authorities and warned of “the possibility of re-arresting him or targeting him and killing him directly and deliberately.”

“We hold Israel fully responsible for the doctor’s life after launching a wide political and media campaign against him,” the Geneva-based rights group said in a statement.

It also added that the release of Dr. Abu Salmiya and several other medical staff without any charges provides further evidence that the pretexts used by the Israeli military to storm and besiege al-Shifa Hospital and destroy it were “baseless and completely fabricated.”

“This confirms that the real goal behind storming the al-Shifa Complex and arresting doctors and officials there is to destroy one of the main components of the health sector in Gaza, depriving Palestinians of any chance for treatment, survival, and even shelter.”  

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