Director of Gaza’s largest hospital released, controversy erupts in Israel

The release of the director of al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Muhammad Abu Salmiya,arrested last November during the first Israeli military operation in the medical complex, has raised tensions in the government of the Jewish state. The images of the doctor upon his arrival in Gaza, greeted by his relatives, along with 50 other released Palestinian prisoners, have been making the rounds on social media, sparking the anger of the Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and putting pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was immediately called into question.

The far-right leader denounced their release on X as “security negligence”, arguing that “it is time for the prime minister to prevent Yoav Gallant (the Minister of Defense) and to head of the Shin Bet to pursue an independent policy contrary to the Cabinet position.”

The prime minister ordered an investigation, while distancing himself: the decision in question “follows discussions in the High Court on a petition against the detention of prisoners in Sde Teiman prison” and “the identity of the released prisoners is determined independently by security officials based on their professional considerations,” his office said.

Gallant also stressed his innocence in the matter, recalling that “the procedure for incarcerating and releasing security prisoners is regulated by the Shin Bet and the Israel Prison Service and is not subject to the approval of the Minister of Defense”. The Shin Bet defended itself by saying that it was forced to release him because of the lack of space in Israeli prisons. Abu Salmiya, like the others, were released because they were deemed not to pose a significant threat, meeting “all requirements regarding the level of danger posed.”

The agency also recalled the warnings raised several times over the past year “on the prison crisis and the need to increase the number of (cells).” “Unfortunately, these requests that were forwarded to all interested parties, first of all the Minister of National Security, who is responsible for them, were not accepted,” it added, referring to Ben-Gvir, one of the fiercest critics of Abu-Salmiya’s release, so much so that he said in a chat of members of the government cabinet that “the time has come to send home the head of the Shin Bet” Ronen Bar. The minister has long been calling for harsher treatment for prisoners and in 2023 he had already proposed a law on the death penalty only for Palestinians. “They should shoot bullets at the prisoners’ heads, instead of giving them more food,” he argued yesterday in a video that went viral.

The former director of Gaza’s largest hospital was arrested on November 23 for questioning about Hamas’s “terrorist activities” at the clinic, amid evidence of Hamas’s use of the hospital as a “command and control center,” Israeli officials said at the time. Salmiya, shortly after her release, denounced that Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons are facing dire conditions, with food and water shortages and the use of torture. On June 21, Hamas called on the international community to investigate cases of abuse in Israeli detention centers, particularly Sde Teiman, where Palestinians captured from Gaza are held, which is the focus of a petition filed with the Supreme Court by several Israeli human rights groups.