GAZA CITY, 10 August 2007 — Dozens of staff members at Gaza’s main hospital staged a new protest yesterday after Hamas security forces arrested a senior doctor from the rival Fatah faction. The health workers gathered in the car park at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City following the overnight arrest of Jumaa Al-Saqqa, the facility’s public relations director who had been fired from his post by Hamas on Wednesday.
“We came to protest against the arrest of our colleague,” said Usama, a physician who refused to give his surname for fear of reprisals by the Islamists, who have clamped down on dissent since taking control of Gaza nearly two months ago. “We are refusing the policy of fear and terror that Hamas is imposing on the doctors of Shifa,” he said.
Hamas’ Executive Force, the paramilitary that has been acting as police in the territory in the wake of the mid-June Gaza takeover, prevented an AFP photographer from taking pictures of the rally, saying he needed authorization. One of the demonstrators was later detained by Hamas forces, staff said.
Saqqa was arrested along with his son by the Executive Force at his home overnight, family members told AFP. The son was released later in the day, but Saqqa remained in detention in the Saraya complex, which housed Fatah security services before Hamas fighters ran them out of the territory.
“Jumaa told us that for the moment, they had not begun any investigation and have not questioned him,” his wife Hanan told AFP after visiting her spouse. A Hamas spokesman said Saqqa was arrested for “penal infractions,” without giving any details.
“An investigation is under way and he is currently in detention by the Executive Force,” spokesman Saber Khalifa told AFP. The arrest came after his colleagues at Shifa stopped working for three hours on Wednesday to protest the firing of their respected colleague, who has worked at the facility for more than 20 years.
Saqqa — who belongs to President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party — said on Wednesday that Hamas security forces handed him a letter of dismissal from Hamas’ Health Minister Bassem Naim and evicted him from his office. “They informed me that I will appear before the hospital’s administrative committee of inquiry, without giving me any reasons,” he said.
A Hamas official said the doctor was fired because he refused to cooperate with the Islamist movement, in line with a directive that Abbas issued after Hamas routed pro-presidential security forces on June 15. Saqqa had sent a letter stating he did not recognize either the health minister, whose administration has been fired by Abbas, nor the Hamas-appointed director of the hospital.
Meanwhile, the last batch of 6,000 Palestinians stranded in Egypt since Hamas took control of Gaza in June returned home yesterday, leaving behind 30 Hamas supporters who cannot travel via Israel. The final group of 400 Palestinians crossed the El-Oja (Nizana) checkpoint, near the divided town of Rafah on the Egypt-Gaza border, before continuing to Gaza via the Jewish state, a Palestinian source at the border told AFP.
Rafah, the usual crossing point between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, has been closed since Hamas militants violently took over the territory on June 15, stranding thousands in dire conditions in the Egyptian desert. “These 30 Palestinians would rather stay in Egypt until the Rafah terminal is opened, and they refuse to cross via El-Oja,” an Egyptian border source said.
“They know they’re down as belonging to or sympathizing with Hamas and fear being arrested by the Israeli authorities,” he said. The remaining Palestinians, who do not have Egyptian visas, are being held at El-Arish airport pending the opening of Rafah, Gaza’s only border crossing that does not go via Israel. “They don’t have any choice but to wait for the Rafah crossing point to open, because either they’re wanted by Israel or because the Zionist enemy won’t allow them in,” Hamas MP Moushir Masri told AFP on Tuesday.
