A Palestinian paramedic at the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza, 40-year-old Tamer Ossama Salem al-Hafy, has spoken of his ordeal in Israeli detention, after being held for 35 days.
Soldiers accused al-Hafy of being a “terrorist” and took him to a detention facility where he was blindfolded. While in detention, he was cuffed by his arms and legs to a bed inside a tent, he said.
Al-Hafy said he was blindfolded except during interrogations and received only “liquid vitamins” through a straw every three or four days as nourishment.
“I was in a prison. I had no idea where it was located,” he told Reuters at a makeshift hospital aboard a cargo ship docked in al-Arish, an Egyptian city in the Sinai Peninsula near Gaza.
“They would uncover my eyes and put it (the blindfold) back after. I didn’t see the sun until I was released,” he said.
Al-Hafy said he was beaten and humiliated and did not receive medical care while in detention, and believes his job as a paramedic made him a target.
“The words ‘medical personnel’ and working at a hospital, that was enough for them to treat you as a suspect,” he said.
Al-Hafy was shot below the knee by Israeli forces as he helped the injured onto stretchers after an Israeli airstrike last November.
He briefly became a patient at the same hospital before fleeing on Nov. 20 when it came under attack. His father, Ossama, had to carry him over his back as they headed for another medical centre in southern Gaza.
