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Abu Safia held at Israeli military detention centre: Report

The director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, who Israel detained in a recent attack on the medical complex, is being kept at a controversial army base, Sde Teiman, which is also a detention facility, CNN reports quoting recently released former prisoners.

“Two Palestinian prisoners released this weekend from the facility said they saw Abu Safia at the prison, and another former detainee said he heard Abu Safia’s name being read out,” the CNN report said.

The WHO and authorities in Gaza said they lost contact with Abu Safia after the raid, which also saw the Israeli military force expel dozens of medical staff and patients and shut down the only partially functioning hospital in northern Gaza.

The Israeli army confirmed on Saturday that it arrested the director as he was “suspected of being a Hamas terrorist operative” and the hospital was used as a “command and control centre”.

The army has not disclosed his whereabouts and has not provided evidence for its claims.


Authorities says five more Palestinians die in Israeli detention

The Palestinian Authority’s Ministry for Detainees and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society announced that they had received reports of the deaths of five Palestinians from Gaza in Israeli detention.

Amani Sarahna, a spokesperson for the Prisoner’s Society, confirmed to the AFP news agency that two of the five died yesterday, while the remaining three died earlier. The organisation said the five prisoners were arrested during the Israel war on the Gaza Strip, some of whom were fleeing from the north to the south.

A statement by the Commission of Detainees’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner Society identified the four victims as Mohammad al-Akka, 44, Samir al-Kahlout, 52, Zuhair al-Sharif, 58, and Mohammad Lubbad, 57. An additional prisoner, Ashraf Mohammad Abu Warda, 51, died in Israel’s Soroka Hospital yesterday, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society said.

Israeli authorities did not provide details to AFP about how the prisoners died when asked for comment. “What is happening to the detainees is just another aspect of the [Israeli] war of extermination,” the statement said.

New fatalities bring the number of Palestinian detainees who have died in Israeli custody since October 7, 2023 to 55, according to Palestinian figures. Palestinian groups estimate that more than 10,000 people are being held in Israeli jails.


Ofer military prison located between Ramallah and Baytunia in the occupied West Bank