RAMALLAH, (Palestine Foundation Information Center), Fears are mounting for the life of Palestinian prisoner leader Hasan Salameh, a senior Hamas official, after he was recently shot nine times and assaulted inside his cell in an Israeli jail.
Ghufran al-Zamel, the prisoner’s fiancée, said on Monday that Salameh was physically assaulted and shot directly inside his cell in an Israeli prison, sustaining nine gunshot wounds across his body, describing his condition as “extremely critical.”
Zamel said on Monday, citing information relayed after a lawyer visited the prisoner, that the incident took place on September 15 following a verbal confrontation between Salameh and far-right Israeli security minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who entered the jail and filmed a video that sparked widespread condemnation.
According to Zamel, Ben Gvir entered Salameh’s cell that day, and a heated exchange took place between them. During the altercation, the prisoner responded to the Israeli minister by asserting the Palestinian people’s right to defend themselves and their land, while challenging him over what he described as crimes committed by the occupation against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
“I, as a Palestinian, have the right to defend my people and my land. After everything you’ve done in Gaza, you have no right to hold me accountable. You’re someone wearing dark glasses, seeing only what happens to your own people while remaining blind to what is happening to my people and the suffering they are enduring,” Zamel quoted Salameh as saying.
Zamel added that Israeli soldiers from the Israeli army returned to Salameh’s cell at around 4:00 p.m. the same day and severely beat him before firing nine rounds that struck him across various parts of his body.
She noted that the Israeli occupation authority waited three days before documenting his injuries and then sending him back to his cell without providing him with meaningful medical care, giving him only basic painkillers despite the severity of the wounds he sustained.
For its part, the Hamas Movement called the incident a “cowardly act of terrorism and criminality that underscores the grave dangers facing Salameh and reflects Israel’s deliberate attempt to liquidate him.”
Salameh was born in 1971 in Khan Yunis refugee camp in southern Gaza and was kidnaped in al-Khalil on May 17, 1996. He is serving 48 life sentences.
