Dozens of Palestinian prisoners, including the director of the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City arrested in November, have been released by Israel and transferred to medical centers in the Gaza Strip, a medical source in the Palestinian territory said on Monday.
Israel "released dozens of prisoners from the Gaza Strip, including Doctor Mohammed Abu Salmiya", through a crossing east of Khan Younes, reported a medical source from the Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital, in the city of Deir el-Balah (center).
Five of them were admitted to this institution and the others were transferred to hospitals in Khan Younes, according to this source.
Asked by AFP about the release of prisoners, the Israeli army indicated "verify this information".
Israeli forces had arrested Mohammed Abu Salmiya in November. Israel accuses Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007, of using the hospitals for military purposes, which it denies.
"Under his leadership, the hospital was the scene of many terrorist activities by Hamas", said the army at the time, which had searched the facility, the largest in the Palestinian territory, room by room.
"The release of the director of the Chifa medical center in Gaza, along with dozens of other terrorists, is a renunciation of security", said Monday the Israeli minister of national security, Itamar Ben Gvir, in a message published on X.
An AFP correspondent in Deir el-Balah saw men reuniting with their loved ones and hugging them, at the Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital. In May, Palestinian associations defending the rights of detainees had claimed that two Palestinians, including a doctor from al-Shifa, had died in an Israeli prison, succumbing to "torture" and lack of care. The Israeli army had indicated to AFP "not being informed" of such facts. It opened an investigation on December 19 after the deaths in custody of several Palestinians arrested in Gaza since October 7.
The war in the Gaza Strip was triggered by the unprecedented attack, on October 7, by Hamas on Israeli soil, which resulted in the death of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.
In response, the Israeli army launched a large-scale offensive in Gaza that claimed the lives of 37,877 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to data from the Ministry of Health of the Hamas-led government of Gaza.