The director of Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital was released from Israeli custody early Monday, apparently without charge, seven months after he was detained on accusations that he had been allowing Hamas militants to use the Palestinian enclave’s largest medical facility as a command center.
Abu Salmiya was arrested in November, after Israeli forces raided Gaza’s largest and most important hospital compound. The Israeli military had accused the medical director of allowing Hamas militants to use the complex as a command and control center.
A Washington Post analysis later found that evidence presented by the Israeli government fell short of supporting claims regarding the facility’s active use as a command hub.
Abu Salmiya’s whereabouts have been unknown to the public since his arrest. In a news conference upon his return to Gaza, he said he had been tortured frequently and denied access to a lawyer, the al-Quds media network reported. Israeli authorities issued no statement to accompany his release Monday, and the military did not respond to request for comment.
The targeting by a U.S. ally of a compound housing hundreds of sick and dying patients and thousands of displaced people had no precedent in recent decades. The raid on al-Shifa caused the hospital’s operations to collapse.
As Israeli troops closed in and fighting intensified, fuel ran out, supplies could not enter, and ambulances were unable to collect casualties from the streets. The Israel Defense Forces had claimed that five hospital buildings were directly involved in Hamas activities, that the buildings sat atop underground tunnels used by militants to direct rocket attacks and command fighters and that the tunnels could be accessed from inside hospital wards.
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Troops did find weaponry inside the complex. But a Post analysis of open-source visuals, satellite imagery and publicly released IDF materials found that none of the five hospital buildings identified by an IDF spokesman appeared to be connected to the tunnel network, and there was no evidence that the tunnels could be accessed from inside hospital wards.
Abu Salmiya’s release sparked anger among Israeli officials. National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said the decision was “a security neglect,” while Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi called for “new security leadership.”
Former war cabinet minister Benny Gantz, who resigned last month, said “whoever made this decision lacks judgment and should be fired today.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office did not take responsibility for the release, saying that the decision to release prisoners Monday was made independently by security agencies, and that an “immediate investigation” had been ordered.
Shin Bet, the domestic intelligence service, blamed the release on overcrowding within Israel’s detention system, saying it had forced the release of prisoners who pose a “lesser threat.”
But the country’s prison service disputed that version of events. “The director of the hospital was not released due to a shortage of detention space,” it said, claiming that Abu Salmiya had been released from Nafha Prison.
“Any claim regarding a failure in the release process undermines the professionalism and integrity of the prison officers who deal daily with the worst of murderers,” the prison service said in a statement.
Uproar in Israel, meanwhile, also continued among the ultra-Orthodox community over last week’s Supreme Court ruling that yeshiva students be conscripted into the Israeli military. Protesters lobbed stones at police and injured several officers on Sunday night, Israeli police said, adding that at least five were arrested.
“We and the army are not the same, the army is like they are Christian, European,” said Shmuel Shitrit, 21, who studies at a yeshiva in Jerusalem during the protest. “I believe that the Torah says that we should not serve in the army,” adding that the “Torah will protect the country.”
At one point, protesters surrounded the car of a minister from one of the ultra-Orthodox parties and pelted it before police were able to get the vehicle out. Police dispersed protesters with skunk-scented water cannon and mounted units.
Ultra-Orthodox parties have threatened to withdraw from Netanyahu’s government if he fails to find a workaround, which could lead to the collapse of his coalition.
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Israel Defense Forces are continuing operations across the Gaza Strip including the Gaza City neighborhood of Shejaiya, where troops carried out “dozens” of strikes and “located large quantities of weapons,” the IDF said Monday. Residents of the densely packed area were ordered to evacuate last week as fighting in Shejaiya intensified.
Approximately 20 projectiles were launched at Israel from the area of Khan Younis, the IDF said Monday, adding that a number of the projectiles were intercepted but some fell inside southern Israel. “IDF Artillery is currently striking the sources of the fire,” the military said. No injuries were reported.
At least 37,900 people have been killed and 87,060 injured in Gaza since the war started, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers, and it says 316 soldiers have been killed since the start of its military operations in Gaza.
Heidi Levine and Lior Soroka contributed to this report
