Uproar in Israel as Head of Terror-infested Shifa Hospital Released to Gaza

Israel is in a political uproar on Monday after authorities released Muhammad Abu Salmiya, the director of Shifa Hospital in Gaza, which Hamas and other terror groups used as a base, including for smuggling or killing hostages.

Abu Salmiya was released after seven months in detention without charge.

Many Israelis believe he is responsible for the terror at the hospital; Palestinians saw his release as a sign of his innocence, and unfair treatment of detainees.

The Jerusalem Post reported:

The Shin Bet and the IDF have released 50 Gaza detainees, including the director of Shifa Hospital Muhammad Abu Salmiya, who has been in administrative detention in Israel since November 23.

Although Hamas was using Shifa Hospital as a terror base and to conceal hostages, there was never any concrete proof publicly produced that Abu Salmiya was directly involved in this.

Back in November, a senior IDF source told The Jerusalem Post that Abu Salmiya had given suspicious answers when questioned about what he knew about Hamas’s systematic usage of his hospital, but suspicious answers without evidence cannot usually be used to hold someone in administrative detention for more than seven months.

It is entirely possible the release was a legal necessity, if there was no evidence specifically pointing to Abu Samiya.

The release prompted a round of finger-pointing among members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet, who attempted to blame each other for releasing Abu Salmiya — at least without Israeli hostages also being released.

Opposition leaders used the event to attack the government, saying it was dysfunctional and needed to be replaced.

Update: Netanyahu has denounced the release of Abu Salmiya and called for a full investigation. In a statement, he said that “the release of the director of the Shifa Hospital is a serious mistake and a moral failure. This man, under whose auspices our hostages were held and murdered, belongs in prison.”

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.