Israel has released the head of Gaza’s biggest hospital, who had been detained for more than seven months. He was among dozens of Palestinians returned this morning to the besieged territory for treatment.
His release was confirmed on social media by Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and by a medical source inside Gaza.
Al-Shifa hospital director Mohammed Abu Salmiya was detained in November.
Successive raids have seen the hospital where he worked largely reduced to rubble since Israel launched its assault on Gaza after the 7 October Hamas attacks on southern Israel.
Dr Salmiya and the other freed detainees crossed back into Gaza from Israel just east of Khan Younis, a medical source at the Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir el-Balah told AFP.
Five detainees were admitted to Al-Aqsa hospital and the others were sent to hospitals in Khan Yunis, the source added.
An AFP correspondent at Deir el-Balah saw some detainees have emotional reunions with their families.
Israel’s military said it was “checking” reports about the release.
However, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir confirmed it when he posted on X, formerly Twitter, that Dr Salmiya’s release “with dozens of other terrorists is security abandonment”.
Israel has accused Hamas of using hospitals in Gaza as a cover for military operations and infrastructure.
The militant group, which has run the territory since 2007, denies the allegations.
In May, Palestinian rights groups said a senior Al-Shifa surgeon had died in an Israeli jail after being detained. Israel’s army said it was unaware of the death.
Fighting rages in Gaza City’s Shujaiya
Heavy battles and bombardment have hit Gaza City’s Shujaiya district for a fourth day yesterday, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged his forces were engaged in a “difficult fight”.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled the devastated neighbourhood, where the Israeli army said it has carried out raids and fought Palestinian militants both “above and below ground” in tunnels.
Months of on-and-off talks towards a Gaza truce and hostage release deal have meanwhile made little progress, with Hamas saying on Saturday that there was “nothing new” in a revised plan presented by US mediators.
The Israeli military reported clashes in central Gaza and the southern Rafah area, a week after Mr Netanyahu declared that the “intense phase” of the war was nearing an end.
The United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA estimated that “60,000 to 80,000 people were displaced” from Shujaiya since new fighting broke out there last Thursday and the army issued evacuation orders.
Mr Netanyahu said Israeli “forces are operating in Rafah, Shujaiya, everywhere in the Gaza Strip”.
“This is a difficult fight that is being waged above ground, sometimes in hand-to-hand combat, and below ground as well,” he said, according to a statement from his office, which added that “dozens of terrorists are being eliminated every day”.
Witnesses in Rafah reported artillery shelling and hospital medics said six people were killed in a strike at dawn yesterday.
The Israeli military launched a ground operation in the southern city in early May, leading to the closure of a key aid crossing.
The United Nations and other relief agencies have voiced alarm over the dire humanitarian crisis and threat of starvation the war and Israeli siege have brought for Gaza’s 2.4 million people.
About a month after US President Joe Biden outlined a truce plan, Washington last week presented “new language” for parts of the proposed deal, according to US news site Axios.
A Hamas official in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan, confirmed that the Islamist movement had received the latest proposal but said it presented “no real progress in the negotiations”.
Hamas has called for a permanent ceasefire and full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, demands repeatedly rejected by Israel.
Protesters again took to the streets of Tel Aviv on Saturday, demanding greater efforts to return the remaining captives, and calling for early elections.
Mr Netanyahu yesterday said that “Hamas is the only obstacle to the release of our hostages”.
The Gaza conflict has also led to soaring tensions on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, where the army has traded fire with the Hezbollah movement, an Iran-backed Hamas ally.
The cross-border clashes continued yesterday, with the Shiite Muslim movement announcing three deaths among its ranks, and the Israeli military saying a drone attack in the annexed Golan Heights left one soldier seriously wounded.
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