Gaza hospital chief reports being tortured in Israeli prison for months
Gaza City, Gaza - The head of Gaza's biggest hospital said on Monday after being freed from more than seven months of detention in Israel that he had been tortured.
Al-Shifa hospital director Mohammed Abu Salmiya 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.
His testimony chimes with sustained reporting on widespread torture of Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons since the start of the war on Gaza.
Israel's systematic targeting of Gaza's health facilities
Israeli forces detained Salmiya during one of a number of raids on Al-Shifa.
The hospital has largely been reduced to rubble by successive raids since Israel launched its assault on Gaza after the October 7 Hamas attacks.
Salmiya and the other freed detainees crossed back into Gaza from Israel just east of Khan Yunis, a medical source at the Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah told AFP.
Five detainees were admitted to Al-Aqsa hospital and the others were sent to hospitals in Khan Yunis, the source added.
An AFP correspondent at Deir al-Balah saw some detainees in emotional reunions with their families.
Israel's military has accused Hamas of using hospitals in the Gaza Strip as a cover for military operations. It has systematically targeted Al-Shifa and other hospitals, and says it has found tunnels and other infrastructure, but has never offered substantial evidence for its claims that medical facilities – where mass graves have been discovered – were being used to stage attacks.
Instead, Israeli troops reportedly have themselves been using hospitals in Gaza as military bases, in violation of international law.
Cover photo: REUTERS