Muhammad Abu Salmiya, director of Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza, was arrested by the occupation on November 23, 2023 (Al Jazeera)

Mohammed Abu Salmiya is a Palestinian pediatrician born in 1973, who assumed the position of medical director of Al-Nasr Hospital in 2007, then took over the management of Al-Rantisi Hospital in 2012, and then became director of Al-Shifa Hospital in 2019 until his arrest on November 23, 2023.

Prior to his arrest, the Israeli occupation forces stormed the hospital, destroyed its facilities, bulldozed its courtyards, and completely isolated it from the world due to electricity and internet cuts, during the "Iron Swords" operation launched on the Gaza Strip in response to the "Al-Aqsa Flood" battle launched by the Palestinian resistance on the seventh of October of the same year on the settlements surrounding Gaza.

Birth and upbringing

Muhammad Muhammad Abd al-Halim Abu Salmiya, nicknamed "Abu Khaled," was born on October 18, 1973, in al-Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City, to parents from the village of al-Joura in Ashkelon. He is married and has 4 children, the eldest of whom graduated from high school in 2023.

Mohammed Abu Salmiya (right) assumed the presidency of Shifa Hospital in 2019 (social media)

Study and scientific training

Mohammed studied in schools in Beach Camp, and obtained his high school diploma in 1991 from the Carmel School in the Gaza Strip, and was one of the distinguished students.

He studied medicine in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, at the Bogomolets National Medical University, because the Israeli occupation prevented the licensing of any medical or pharmacy school inside the Strip, and Abu Salmiya specialized in pediatrics and then returned to the Gaza Strip in 1998. He obtained the Palestinian Board of Pediatrics.

Medical Experience

Since his graduation and return to Palestine, Abu Salmiya worked in a number of the most important hospitals in the Gaza Strip, starting in 2000 working as a doctor at the European Gaza Hospital in Khan Yunis (southern Gaza Strip) until 2004, then working at Al-Nasr Children's Hospital until 2012, and assuming the position of medical director of the same hospital in 2007.

In 2012, he took over the management of Rantisi Children's Hospital. In late July 2019, he became director of al-Shifa Medical Complex, the largest medical institution inside the Gaza Strip.

He served as deputy head of the Gaza Medical Syndicate for the southern governorates, before being appointed director of Shifa Hospital.

He chaired pediatric conferences held in the Gaza Strip, and participated in medical conferences outside the Strip, the last of which was a scientific conference bringing together the Ministry of Health in Gaza and the West Bank in the capital of the Arab Republic of Egypt, Cairo in 2023, and was sponsored by the Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean.

His mark at Al-Shifa Medical Complex

Abu Salmiya worked on the development and renaissance of Al-Shifa Hospital, as he began the project of restoring the old maternity building in the hospital before the Israeli occupation aggression on the Gaza Strip in 2023. He also collaborated with American medical delegations from the Fajr Foundation with the participation of local hospital staff.

The new emergency department was opened on the tenth of July 2023, which became the largest department at the level of the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem, and included 62 beds instead of 32, in addition to 10 intensive care beds instead of 5, in addition to gypsum and stitch rooms, and places for simple cases, and worked to develop the administrative medical and nursing cadres working in this department.

Abu Salmiya promised to develop the interventional radiology department, which is considered one of the most modern devices in the world, funded by the Palestinian American Medical Association (PAMA), which would have been a quantum leap for medical services in the Gaza Strip.

It was a few steps away from localizing kidney transplantation in the Gaza Strip, and the hospital had the capacity to handle highly skilled major surgeries that had previously been transferred outside the Gaza Strip. The number of surgeries performed at Shifa Hospital reached 31,971 operations during 2022.

Arrested by the Israeli occupation

The Israeli occupation army arrested Mohammed Abu Salmiya and a number of medical staff on November 23, 2023, after the occupation forces stormed the emergency department of the hospital, during the aggression on the Gaza Strip.

Abu Salmiya reported that on November 18, 2023, he received an order from the occupation to evacuate the hospital after he rejected a similar previous order, as hundreds of patients and displaced people were evacuated to another hospital in the southern Gaza Strip, in addition to transferring dozens of premature babies.

Functions and responsibilities

  • 2000: Worked as a doctor at the European Gaza Hospital.
  • 2004: Worked as a doctor at Al-Nasr Children's Hospital.
  • 2007: Assumed the position of Medical Director of Al-Nasr Hospital.
  • 2012: Took over the management of Rantisi Hospital.
  • 2019: Became the director of Shifa Hospital.
  • He worked as a lecturer at Al-Azhar University and the Islamic University until the date of his arrest.
  • He headed the Friendship Sports Club.

Source : Al Jazeera