Shifa hospital head rejects IDF claim that brother was Hamas sniper

The director of Gaza’s Shifa’s hospital dismisses the Israeli claim that his brother was a Hamas sharpshooter as “a lie, slander and an unacceptable justification for targeting civilians with direct missile strikes.”

The IDF said this morning that it had killed Majed Abu Salmiya in a strike a day earlier, describing him as “a sniper for Hamas [who] was preparing to carry out an imminent terror attack against IDF troops in the Gaza City area.”

Mohammed Abu Salmiya, director of Gaza’s Shifa Hospital, tells AFP that he had been working in the emergency department on Saturday when his brother and sister-in-law’s bodies were brought in, leaving him “shocked and devastated.”

“My brother is a 57-year-old man who suffers from several illnesses such as high blood pressure and diabetes, and he has severe vision impairment — and they claim he was a sniper? This is pure fabrication,” he says.