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al shifa hospital
Newly Released Gaza Hospital Director Alleges 'Almost Daily Torture' in Israeli Detention
The hospital director, who'd been held without trial since Israeli forces detained him in November, said that he and others were subjected to torture, psychological humiliation, and severe undernourishment.
Jul 01, 2024
The director of Gaza's main hospital said at a press conference on Monday that he was tortured while being held without charges for the last seven months at an Israeli detention center.
Muhammad Abu Salmiya, director of the Al-Shifa hospital, once Gaza's main medical center, made the claims after he and 54 other Palestinian detainees were released and arrived back to the Gaza Strip.
Israeli forces had raided the hospital in November and alleged that Abu Salmiya was involved in making it a Hamas command center. They later destroyed the hospital.
Abu Salmiya said detention guards broke his finger and beat him to the point that his head bled—and that he wasn't the only one.
"Our detainees have been subjected to all kinds of torture behind bars," Abu Salmiya said. "There was almost daily torture."
There was "daily physical and psychological humiliation," he added.
He also said that they were severely underfed, surviving on nothing more than a loaf of bread per day. He said that all of the detainees had lost at least 30 kilograms (66 pounds).
"Our detainees have been subjected to all kinds of torture behind bars. There was almost daily torture."
Israeli forces seized Abu Salmiya from a United Nations convoy on November 22. They took him to court three times while in detainment but brought no charges and allowed him no lawyer, Abu Salmiya said.
His detention in November followed an Israeli siege of Al-Shifa hospital, which Israeli officials said had become a Hamas control center. Though weapons were found at the hospital, an investigation by The Washington Post in December showed that the evidence fell short of revealing a command center, and that key claims the Israelis had made to justify the siege turned out to be incorrect.
Israeli forces attacked the hospital again in late March, killing hundreds and leaving the facility mostly destroyed. Several mass graves were discovered near the hospital site in the weeks that followed.
Israel has detained thousands of Palestinians since the war started, leading to "intolerable overcrowding" of its facilities, as Haaretzreported in February. Many detainees are held without charges in what is called "administrative detention."
At least 40 Palestinians have died in Israeli detention during the war, according to Addameer, a Palestinian watchdog group. Salmiya said Monday that some had been killed in interrogation cells, Al Jazeerareported.
At least one other doctor was among those released on Monday: Bassam Miqdad, head of the orthopedic unit at Gaza European hospital in Khan Younis.
In April, Adnan Ahmad Albursh, a 50-year-old Palestinian surgeon, died in Israeli detention, according to Palestinian officials and rights groups. He had been the head of orthopedics at Al-Shifa hospital. Overall, hundreds of healthcare workers have been killed during the war.
Israeli officials and political figures from various parties denounced the release of the 55 detainees, which was reportedly done to make space in the overcrowded detention centers.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right minister in charge of Israel's police and prison service, called the release of the detainees a case of "security negligence" and blamed another ministry. Benny Gantz, an opposition figure who recently resigned from the war cabinet, said whoever released the detainees should be fired and that government offices should be made available to "free up space and budget for prisoners," according to Al Jazeera.
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Critics Denounce Israel's Defense Against Genocide Charges as 'Dishonest Talking Points'
"The problem for Israel is that the world has seen what they've done," said one observer.
May 17, 2024
The arguments presented by Israeli representatives at the International Court of Justice on Friday were not unexpected, as the government faced a new set of hearings on the Israel Defense Forces' assault on Gaza, but observers said the legal team's defense of the country's actions in the Palestinian enclave were "hard to stomach" in light of mounting reports about the lack of humanitarian aid and the rising death toll.
Tamar Kaplan Tourgeman, principal deputy legal adviser of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Gilad Noam, the deputy attorney general for international law, presented Israel's arguments against South Africa's claim that the ICJ must stop the IDF's invasion of Rafah, from which 630,000 Palestinians have been forced to flee since Israel seized a border crossing there and began moving troops into residential neighborhoods.
More than 1 million people have been forcibly displaced to Rafah since October as Israel has decimated cities across Gaza in what it claims is an effort to target Hamas fighters—but which has killed at least 35,303 people, two-thirds of whom have been women and children. The World Food Program and the U.S. Agency for International Development have both said in recent weeks, following months of warnings from humanitarian groups, that famine has taken hold in parts of Gaza due to Israel's near-total blockade on humanitarian aid.
Tourgeman claimed that South Africa—which launched the genocide case against Israel in December—has turned "a blind eye to Israel's remarkable effort" to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza residents and said Israel has taken "proactive steps" to ensure medical care is still being provided. However, the World Health Organization (WHO) disputed the claims at a press briefing shortly after the hearing.
"The last medical supplies that we got in Gaza was before May 6," WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic said at a U.N. press briefing, referring to the date Israel seized the Rafah crossing. "We don't have fuel. We have hospitals under evacuation order. We have a situation where we cannot move physically."
Al Jazeera journalist Tareq Abu Azzoum reported Friday that U.N. officials had confirmed no aid has come through either the Rafah or Karem Abu Salem crossings in recent days.
"That reflects how much Israel is working to erase truth and change the facts on the ground as it continues its relentless bombardment of Rafah and the Jabalia refugee camp," Abu Azzoum said.
Marc Owen Jones, associate professor of Middle East studies and digital humanities at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar, accused Israel of using the ICJ hearing to promote "dishonest talking points" to the international community.
"This is why a lot of what it says comes across as completely dishonest—because it is completely dishonest," Jones told Al Jazeera. "There is a difference between the reality on the ground and what Israel is trying to present to the international community... The aid situation is desperate."
Kate Stegeman, a policy and advocacy consultant in South Africa, said it was "particularly hard to stomach" Israel's denial that civilians and medical staffers were killed by the IDF at Al-Shifa Hospital, one of the facilities where multiple mass graves have been found containing hundreds of bodies, including those of women and children.
This part is particularly hard to stomach: in response to concerning allegations of numerous war crimes perpetrated amid Israel’s March military operation at Al Shifa hospital, Kaplan Tourgeman categorically denies any patients or medical staff were killed by the IDF #Gaza #ICJ pic.twitter.com/MUW3Cschzb
— Kate Stegeman (@KatesCurious) May 17, 2024
Tourgeman also focused part of her defense on statements made by Israeli officials about their objectives in Gaza. She claimed that when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Gaza must not pose a threat to Israel and when Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the military operates "neighborhood by neighborhood" and will reach every location in Gaza, they were speaking expressly about Hamas.
The legal adviser did not mention Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich's recent call for the "total annihilation" of Rafah and other cities, Gallant's statement that he had "released all the restraints" on the military, or a former intelligence chief's comment in October that "the 'noncombatant population' in the Gaza Strip is really a nonexistent term," among other statements.
While the Israeli representatives claimed the country "has been and remains committed to acting in accordance with its international legal obligations," said one critic, "the problem for Israel is that the world has seen what they've done."
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UN Rights Chief Demands International Probe of Mass Graves Near Gaza Hospitals
"Hospitals are entitled to very special protection under international humanitarian law," said Volker Türk, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights.
Apr 23, 2024
The United Nations' human rights chief on Tuesday called for an international investigation into mass graves discovered at two Gaza hospitals that Israeli forces recently assailed and destroyed, further imperiling the enclave's barely functioning healthcare system.
Volker Türk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement that he was "horrified" by the discovery of mass graves at the Nasser and al-Shifa medical complexes, which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reduced to ruins.
More than 300 bodies were reportedly discovered in the mass grave near the Nasser facility in Khan Younis, Gaza, and eyewitnesses said Israeli soldiers executed civilians during their two-week-long raid of al-Shifa last month.
Türk demanded an "independent, effective, and transparent" probe into the killings and mass graves, adding that "given the prevailing climate of impunity, this should include international investigators."
"Hospitals are entitled to very special protection under international humanitarian law," he added. "And the intentional killing of civilians, detainees, and others who are hors de combat is a war crime."
"Every 10 minutes a child is killed or wounded. They are protected under the laws of war, and yet they are ones who are disproportionately paying the ultimate price."
The IDF's destructive attacks on Nasser and al-Shifa were part of a broader Israeli assault on Gaza's healthcare system. An analysis released Monday by Save the Children found that the rate of monthly Israeli attacks on healthcare in Gaza since October has exceeded that of any other conflict around the world since 2018.
The group estimated that Israel has launched an average of 73 attacks per month on healthcare in Gaza—and at least 435 attacks total since October.
"After six months of unimaginable horror, the healthcare system in Gaza has been brought to its knees," said Xavier Joubert, Save the Children's country director in the occupied Palestinian territory. "Healthcare workers are risking their lives daily to give Palestinian children a chance at survival. The constant attacks on healthcare are simply unjustifiable and must stop. Palestinian children must have unimpeded access to services, including healthcare and education."
Türk also used his statement Tuesday to condemn Israeli forces' killing of women and children in airstrikes on the southern Gaza city of Rafah in recent days. The human rights official noted that Gaza doctors rescued a baby from the womb of her mother as the latter succumbed to head injuries from an Israeli strike.
"The latest images of a premature child taken from the womb of her dying mother, of the adjacent two houses where 15 children and five women were killed—this is beyond warfare," said Türk. "Every 10 minutes a child is killed or wounded. They are protected under the laws of war, and yet they are ones who are disproportionately paying the ultimate price in this war."
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