Release of Gazan Hospital Director Draws Outcry in Israel

Israel released the director of Gaza’s largest hospital on Monday after more than seven months of detention, Palestinian health officials said, a move that drew an immediate outcry in Israel even though no charges against him have been made public.

Mohammad Abu Salmiya, the director of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, was taken into custody in late November during an Israeli military raid on the facility, an early focus of its invasion of Gaza. Human rights groups have said his prolonged detention was a sign of Israeli mistreatment of Palestinian prisoners, while some Israeli officials on Monday denounced the decision to release him as an example of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s mismanagement of the war.

Speaking at a news conference after his release, Dr. Abu Salmiya, visibly frail, said that he had been released and returned to Gaza along with nearly 50 other Palestinian detainees, including other doctors and health ministry staff members.

“We were subjected to extreme torture,” said Dr. Abu Salmiya, adding that his finger had been broken and that he had been beaten over the head repeatedly. The Israeli Prison Service, which operates the Nafha Prison where he was last held, said in a statement that it was not aware of Dr. Abu Salmiya’s claims, and that “all prisoners are detained according to the law.”

Dr. Abu Salmiya told reporters thathe had been taken in for three or four legal proceedings but that no charges had been brought against him.

He was detained while traveling with a United Nations convoy of ambulances evacuating patients from the hospital to southern Gaza, and was stopped at an Israeli checkpoint, the Gaza health ministry and the Palestine Red Crescent Society said.