Gaza hospital chief says he was severely tortured in Israeli prisons

The director of Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital, who had been detained by Israeli forces for more than seven months, says he was put through "severe torture" during his detention in Israeli prisons. 

Mohammed Abu Salmiya was among more than 50 Palestinians released and returned to Gaza, according to a medical source in the besieged territory.

Salmiya told a press conference on Monday that detainees “are subjected to all kinds of torture," in Israel’s prisons and detention centers.

“There was almost daily torture. Cells are broken into and prisoners are beaten.”

"Several inmates died in interrogation centers and were deprived of food and medicine," the hospital chief said.

Salmiya said the regime’s prison guards “broke his finger and caused his head to bleed during beatings, in which they used batons and dogs.”

According to him, the Israeli regime’s medical staff at different detention facilities had also taken part “in violation of all laws.”

Some Palestinian detainees, he said, had limbs amputated because of poor medical care.

Salmiya said there are still thousands of detainees held by the regime’s forces.

The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas said in a statement that the conditions of the newly-released prisoners -- showing signs of emaciation and physical and psychological torture-- expose the criminal nature of the fascist Israeli regime.

Referring to Dr. Salmiya's testimony, Hamas said the Palestinians are subject to all kinds of abuse and torture inside Israeli jails upon direct orders from Israeli authorities as part of their fascist policy to "exterminate the Palestinian people" with full support of the US government.

It further called on the international community, the United Nations, and the UN institutions to “work immediately to stop this massacre carried out by the Nazi occupation government,” stressing the necessity of “protecting prisoners and civilians in areas of conflict.”

According to the Gaza media office, the regime forces have kidnapped at least 5,000 Palestinians since October 2023, when the military launched its bloodiest-ever war in the besieged territory.

The fate of many of them or the conditions of their detention are still unknown, said the media office.

Israel releases Gaza's al-Shifa Hospital director, many others, as prisons overcrowded

The Israeli regime releases the director of the Gaza Strip’s al-Shifa Hospital after eight months as overcrowding afflicts the occupying entity’s prisons.

The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Alice Jill Edwards, said previously that he received reports that Palestinians were being beaten, kept in cells blindfolded and handcuffed for excessive periods, deprived of sleep, and threatened with physical and sexual violence.

Other reports suggest detainees have been insulted and exposed to acts of humiliation, such as being photographed and filmed in degrading poses.

The UN expert urged the regime to allow immediate access to international human rights and humanitarian observers to all the places in which Palestinians have been detained since October.

Human rights groups have repeatedly raised the alarm about “unprecedented difficult conditions” in which all Palestinian detainees, including women, are being held. Around 80 female detainees are currently being held in the regime prisons.

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