[News] Gaza doctors seized by Israel say they were used as 'human shields'

[Anti-Imperialist News]

middleeasteye.net
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-gaza-doctors-seized-used-human-shields>
Gaza doctors seized by Israel say they were used as 'human shields'
By Maha Hussaini in Gaza, Palestine
December 1, 2023
------------------------------

A doctor who worked at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza during the Israeli siege
and bombardment of the complex has described how Israeli troops used them
as “hostages” as they invaded the hospital, and later detained the head of
the hospital, along with more than 20 other medical personnel from Gaza, in
what one Palestinian medic called a “war on hospitals”.

Following weeks of intense bombardment of the largest medical complex in
the northern Gaza Strip, the Israeli
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/israel> military approved an
evacuation request for the staff and patients to the southern enclave,
submitted in coordination with the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the
United Nations.

When a UN-led convoy of ambulances arrived at a checkpoint set up by
Israeli forces on the road connecting the northern Gaza Strip to southern
areas, they were stopped, searched, and interrogated for seven hours,
before the head of al-Shifa medical complex, Dr Mohammed Abu Silmiya, was
detained along with around five other doctors.

Even before evacuation, Abu Silmia was held in custody and interrogated
twice by Israeli officers inside the al-Shifa Hospital.

Marwan Abu Saada, a doctor who was interrogated with him, spoke to Middle
East Eye about the "horrifying hours" when Israeli soldiers held them and
used them as human shields inside the hospital.

"For several days, Israeli aircraft kept bombing different buildings and
departments of the hospital. Quadcopters were shooting directly at people,
including patients and displaced persons. People were killed inside the
hospital," Abu Saada, the head of the surgery department at al-Shifa
Hospital, said.

"They besieged the hospital for five days before they stormed its
departments. They kept us [in certain areas] and threatened us [with
getting targeted].

"When they stormed the ground stores, they used us [doctors] as human
shields to enter and search them. They found the technical maintenance
employees there and interrogated them, before they detained them."

While moving from one department to another and searching the different
offices and rooms of the hospital, Israeli forces took several doctors with
them.

"We felt that we were hostages, used to [protect] Israeli soldiers. They
took me and Dr Abu Silmiya and interrogated us. They did not use violence
with me or Dr Abu Silmiya. But they interrogated Dr Abu Silmiya twice," Abu
Saada continued.

The doctor said Israeli forces questioned him and Abu Silmiya about the
presence of any Hamas members or hostages in the hospital's offices or if
there was any activity being conducted by Hamas in al-Shifa.

"We said no because we have never seen any Hamas members there. They
besieged us in the hospital for five days, and on the eve of the truce, I
returned home, and patients and some medical staff members were evacuated
to the south," Abu Saada said.
'He refused to leave the hospital'

On 22 November, the Palestinian
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/palestine> health ministry said it
was informed by the UN that they had coordinated with the WHO to evacuate
the patients from the al-Shifa Medical Complex and move them to southern
areas.

<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-gaza-separated-attacks-truce-reunite-loved-ones>

Israel-Palestine war: Separated Palestinians use truce to reunite with
loved ones

Read More »
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-gaza-separated-attacks-truce-reunite-loved-ones>

In a statement released by the ministry on the following day, its
spokesperson, Ashraf al-Qudra, condemned the detention of medical staff
members as they were evacuating the city, and declared a "complete halt of
coordination with the WHO regarding the evacuation of the rest of the
wounded and medical staff until [they] submit a report clarifying what had
happened, and [until] the release of the detainees".

"We were surprised that the convoy was stopped at the occupation checkpoint
that separates the northern Gaza Strip from the south for seven hours," the
statement read.

"The patients, their companions, and the medical staff that accompanied
them were met with excessive force by Israeli occupation forces. They ended
up detaining a number of them, including the head of the al-Shifa medical
complex, Dr Mohammed Abu Silmiya."

According to Qudra, Abu Silmiya had not left the hospital or seen his
family since the beginning of the war
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/topics/israel-palestine-war>.

"He refused to leave the hospital until the last patient [was evacuated],"
he said in another statement.

On Monday, the Gaza Government Media office said the Israeli authorities
had extended Abu Silimiya's detention for another 45 days for further
interrogation.
'Doctors directly killed'

On the day after the detention campaign, Israeli forces bombed the power
generators of the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip.

For weeks, the hospital has been targeted by aerial and artillery shells
that have devastated large parts of its departments and resulted in the
killing and wounding of hundreds of patients, displaced people, and
healthcare professionals.

'Many of our colleagues were directly killed. Every day, we hear the name
of another doctor who was killed'

-* Fadel Naim, dean of faculty of medicine, Islamic University*

Fadel Naim, a doctor who had witnessed the attacks, said Israeli
quadcopters killed patients and displaced people inside the hospital.

"The quadcopters were hovering at low altitudes over the heads of people
inside the [courtyards] of the hospital. There was heavy shooting on
people," the gynaecologist and the dean of the faculty of medicine at the
Islamic University of Gaza told MEE.

"Many doctors and healthcare professionals have been interrogated and
detained.

"Every Palestinian is subject to detention, but they detain doctors in
particular thinking that they would get information that might prove their
allegations about the resistance. They interrogate them to get information
and details about other people."

Naim said that since the beginning of the attack, he had witnessed or heard
of many doctors getting killed or wounded.

"Many of our colleagues were directly killed. Every day, we hear the name
of another doctor who was killed. Many of the doctors who were once our
students were also killed or detained," he said.
'This war revealed everything'

In the al-Awda hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, Adnan Radi,
an obstetrician and gynaecologist, said Israel had "declared a war on
hospitals in the strip".

"I call this the war on hospitals - they wanted to launch this war on
medical staff. But all the allegations of the occupation were proven false
after they stormed
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-shifa-hospital-gaza-besiege-attack>
and searched al-Shifa and the Indonesian hospitals," Radi told MEE.

"I swear to God that I have never seen one armed person inside any of the
hospitals.

"We were attacked and the hospital was directly bombed. We paid a high
price for insisting on continuing our work despite the persistent attacks,
we lost colleagues, doctors, and patients.

'I call this the war on hospitals - they wanted to launch this war on
medical staff'

*- Adnan Radi, doctor*

"The hospital was attacked although we did not have anyone affiliated with
[Palestinian factions] inside, we did not even have displaced people taking
refuge at the hospital like other hospitals, we only had patients, their
companions, and healthcare professionals."

Radi, whose home in the al-Rimal neighbourhood in the centre of Gaza City
was destroyed by the attacks, said that he could not leave the hospital and
evacuate to the southern areas of the strip, even during the pause in
fighting.

Al-Awda Hospital is currently the only place in the northern areas of the
strip providing healthcare services to pregnant women, he explained.

"We have around 5,000 birth deliveries each month, and women from across
different areas of Gaza City and other northern areas of the strip suffer
in order to reach the hospital. I have been working in the hospital nonstop
for 48 days and the situation is more than bleak," he said.

"We cannot leave the hospital. There are around 55,000 pregnant women in
Gaza who need constant medical care, and we are the only ones currently
providing these services after all other hospitals stopped working."

According to Radi, four doctors, two patients, and two patient companions
were killed in a direct Israeli bombardment of the hospital's departments.

"This is a revealing war. It revealed the falsity of the world's values,
their propaganda talking about human rights and women's rights and their
false speeches about the protection of medical staff and hospitals," he
said.

"This war revealed everything."

At least 26 healthcare professionals from Gaza are currently detained by
Israel, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
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