Nearly nine months into the invasion of Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday that we are now “towards the end of the phase of eliminating the terrorist army of Hamas. We will continue to strike what remains.”
From the battlefield, the Israeli army announced the destruction of a 1 km-long tunnel in the center of the Strip, in addition to the death of the 319th soldier and the wounding of nine others in Rafah, in the south of the Strip. There, where the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of what remains of Hamas, claim to have destroyed an Israeli tank in the neighborhood of Tal Al-Sultan. Israeli bombings instead hit and caused victims in both Gaza City and Rafah, bringing the death toll recorded by local authorities to 37,900
BUT TO MAKE NEWS It was the ability of the Islamic Jihad to launch about twenty rockets towards southern Israel yesterday, all intercepted or fell without causing damage. The order given by the army to the Palestinians in the eastern neighborhoods of Khan Yunis to immediately evacuate the area would be linked to this.
Yesterday in Israel was also marked by strong internal tensions. Determined to seize the opportunity to launch new attacks on the heads of the Armed Forces and security services and on the judges of the Supreme Court, Netanyahu ordered an “immediate investigation” into the release – along with 53 other Palestinian prisoners – of Mohammad Abu Salmiya, director of the Shifa hospital in Gaza City, arrested last November during the first Israeli occupation of the hospital complex.
“THE DECISION to release the prisoners follows the Supreme Court hearings on a petition against the detention of prisoners in the Sde Teiman center,” his office said, underlining that the prime minister was not behind the decision. The “fault” lies with others; he would never have released those Palestinians.
Yet, Abu Salmiya’s release was based on assessments made by the heads of the Shin Bet (internal secret service). Initially, the doctor had been accused of having placed Shifa at the disposal of Hamas to treat and hide some of the Israeli hostages taken on October 7. But, evidently, he was not involved in the activities of the Islamic movement if the same Israeli intelligence services – never gentle with the Palestinians – gave the green light to his return to Gaza after seven months spent in inhumane conditions in the infamous detention camp of Sde Teiman, in the Negev desert.
The Shin Bet confirmed yesterday that the director of Shifa met the criteria for release. The doctor, embraced by friends and relatives upon his return, immediately wanted to report the situation to Sde Teiman. “Many prisoners have been martyred under interrogation… Israeli doctors and nurses beat and torture Palestinian prisoners and treat the bodies of detainees as if they were inanimate objects… each prisoner has lost about 30 kilos between food denial and torture… we have been attacked almost every day and we have not met lawyers, nor have any international institutions visited us,” he told a press conference in Gaza City. “Israel,” he added, “arrested me as if I were a big fish; now it turns out that everything was a lie and that they had blown the whole thing out of proportion. Here I am, released without any charges; they took me before a judge several times, and even there they did not present any evidence. I was released without any conditions and without any understandings or agreements.”
Mohammed Abu Salmiyya
Each prisoner lost 30 kilos between denied food and torture. Attacked almost every day, never met lawyers or international institutions
ISRAEL AFTER OCTOBER 7 has arrested thousands of Palestinians from Gaza, describing them all as “Hamas terrorists.” Many of them, after months of detention, abuse, torture and deprivation, have been found not to be involved in any political or armed organization. They will never have justice for what they have suffered. After all, what Sde Teiman is does not matter to Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid, who yesterday launched an attack accusing the government of “endangering the security of the country” by not preventing the release of Abu Salmiya. “The debacle over the release of the hospital director is a direct consequence of the lawlessness and dysfunction that characterize the government and that put the security of Israeli citizens at risk,” Lapid wrote. Similar words were spoken by former general Benny Gantz, who returned to the opposition after eight months in Netanyahu’s war cabinet.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant denied any responsibility for the release of the 54 detainees. Ministers from Likud, Netanyahu’s party, and the far right are furious and are calling for the resignation of almost everyone in the security apparatus. Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who a few days ago said that in his opinion the Palestinian detainees should be shot in the head, since he considers them all terrorists, is calling for a tough stance.
THE ARAB PRESS Meanwhile, it reports that Egypt has rejected Israel’s idea to demolish the Rafah crossing and rebuild it near the Kerem Shalom crossing, as reported a few nights ago by Channel 12 TV. Despite protests from Cairo, the Israeli army is working along the Philadelphia Corridor, a 14 km strip inside Gaza on the border with Egypt, in order to maintain control of it in the future and prevent, as it claims, Hamas from obtaining weapons through the tunnels.
