The Israeli army has arrested the director of al-Shifa Hospital, the largest medical complex in the Gaza Strip, according to a doctor and media reports.
Muhammad Abu Salmiya was arrested along with several other “senior doctors”, Khalid Abu Samra, head of department at the hospital, told the AFP news agency on Thursday.
The arrest was also reported by the Israel Broadcasting Authority and was confirmed in a post on social media platform X by Salmiya. cousinAdham Abou Selmiya.
Gaza’s health ministry said it wanted an explanation from the World Health Organization because doctors were traveling in a WHO convoy with patients when they were stopped and detained by Israeli forces.
“The World Health Organization has not yet sent us any report explaining the situation, including the number and names of those detained,” said Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra. “The inability to contact al-Shifa means we do not know who has been arrested… It is possible that some of these detainees will be killed. We know that the occupying forces are capable of this.”
He said the ministry had decided to suspend coordination with WHO regarding evacuations until it sends them a report explaining what happened.
In a statement, Hamas said it “strongly denounces” the arrest of Salmiya and his colleagues, calling on the International Committee of the Red Cross and other international organizations to work for their “immediate release.” .
Days before the arrests, “two Palestinian paramedics were arrested by Israeli occupying forces,” said Tel Aviv Tribune’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting Thursday from southern Gaza.
“This clearly shows that there is no immunity inside the Gaza Strip, neither for medical personnel, nor for civil defense teams, nor even for journalists, because the attacks have affected all classes of the Palestinian community. »
Al-Shifa Hospital was a focal point of the Israeli ground offensive in northern Gaza. The military ordered the evacuation of the facility on Saturday, but the handful of staff remaining say about 180 patients are still there.
The Israeli military, which raided the hospital last week, says Hamas fighters used a tunnel complex beneath the Gaza City facility to stage attacks. Hamas and hospital officials have repeatedly denied these claims.
Indonesian hospital
Separately, on Thursday, Munir al-Bursh, director general of Gaza’s health ministry, said the Israeli army had given people hospitalized at the Indonesian hospital only a few hours to evacuate the facility to the north. from Gaza.
He said around 200 patients remained at the hospital after some 450 patients were evacuated yesterday, and he told Tel Aviv Tribune that shelling continues from all sides in the surrounding area.
“This hospital is considered the main central hospital still operating in the northern Gaza Strip, alongside two other central hospitals,” Tel Aviv Tribune’s Abu Azzoum said, adding that there were patients, from medical personnel and internally displaced persons.
“The two hospitals (al-Shifa and the Indonesian hospital) are in a very serious, even critical condition, as Israeli troops continue to surround them and even exercise significant control,” our correspondent said.
On Wednesday, the U.N. humanitarian office said the Israeli military “blocked” an ambulance convoy carrying 190 wounded and sick people from al-Shifa hospital to the south, resulting in a delay of nearly 20 hours.
The long delay at the Israeli military checkpoint separating north and south Gaza has put “the lives of the wounded and sick at risk,” according to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS).
The medical service said earlier that 14 of its ambulances, two UN buses and other vehicles had been involved in evacuating patients, as well as “a number of medical teams” from the hospital. -Shifah.
PRCS said three paramedics and a companion of one of the injured patients were held for more than three hours in the cold while the patients were transferred to hospitals in the south.