Gaza Health Ministry to cease co-ordination with UN as Israel arrests Al Shifa director

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Gaza’s Health Ministry has said it will stop co-ordinating with the World Health Organisation in evacuating patients and medical staff from hospitals, following the arrest of the director of Al Shifa Hospital, the largest in the besieged enclave.

“We condemn the arrest of Muhammad Abu Salmiya and a number of medical personnel held by the occupation forces. He left the complex with the UN and WHO following evacuation orders from the occupation with dozens of patients and health workers,” Gaza’s Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf Al Qudra told The National.

“We are calling all sides to take responsibility to release the doctor and those with him. This is a crime against humanity.”

The doctor was arrested as part of a UN convoy evacuating patients from Al Shifa, Mr Al Qudra said.

“The army stopped the convoy at a checkpoint separating the northern and southern Gaza Strip for seven hours and the soldiers dealt with extreme violence with the medical staff, the wounded, the sick and those accompanying them.”

“The matter ended with the arrest of Mr Salmiya.”

He later confirmed the ministry will cease work with WHO in evacuating staff and patients from hospitals, which have been increasingly targeted by Israeli forces in recent days, and said the UN and Israel bear responsibility for his arrest.

More than 400 people were evacuated from the Indonesian Hospital on Wednesday night, officials have said. The complex continues to be surrounded by Israeli forces.

The military has said the hospital, which doctors say has had no food, water or electricity for almost two weeks, is home to “militant activity” and threatened to storm it on Thursday morning.

Mr Al Qudra also called the arrest a “terrorist move” against Gaza’s health care and workers “who have been working under extreme and difficult circumstances for the last 47 days.”

Al Shifa Hospital has become a flashpoint in Israel’s war against Hamas, which began when gunmen from the militant group crossed the border into Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking 240 hostage.