Gaza nurse held by Israel says she was abducted by Abu Shabab gang

A Palestinian nurse says she was abducted by an Israeli-backed gang from the Gaza Strip earlier this year and handed over to the Israeli army, who used her to pressure her detained doctor father during interrogations.

Tasneem al-Hams, 22, was released in Khan Younis on Thursday, nearly two months after she was arbitrarily taken into Israeli custody.

Upon her release, she told local media she was abducted by members of the Israel-backed Popular Forces armed group - otherwise known as Abu Shabab gang. 

"They then handed me over to the Israelis, east of Khan Younis," she added.

The nurse was abducted while working at a medical facility in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, according to her family.

The militia, led by convicted drug dealer and Islamic State-linked Yasser Abu Shabab, has been condemned by various Palestinian factions as a “traitorous group” for its attacks on civilians, aid looting, and collaboration with Israel.

Al-Hams was abducted in early October, three months after her father, Dr Marwan al-Hams, who oversees field hospitals in the Gaza Strip, was kidnapped by undercover Israeli special forces. 

Tasneem said she was transferred between various Israeli prisons and detention centres while in their custody, including the Ashkelon prison where her father is being held.

She said she was “used as a means of pressure” on her father while he was being interrogated. She added that she met him only briefly.

"I wish for the release of my father," Tasneem said.  

“I was abducted by Yasser Abu Shabab’s group, then they handed me over to the Israelis.”

Palestinian nurse Tasneem al-Hams, the daughter of detained doctor Marwan al-Hams, returned to Gaza on Thursday after spending nearly two months in Israeli prisons pic.twitter.com/yqPRGPTNtA

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Tasneem said she also spent time at Damon Prison, which, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS), holds many Palestinian women who face increasingly difficult conditions and harsh treatment from prison guards.

She said around 50 Palestinian female detainees from the occupied West Bank and Palestinian communities inside Israel were being held at Damon, and she called for their release.

Despite interrogators telling her she would be sent home and that “they didn’t want anything” from her, she was moved between detention centres for two months.

“I was spending all my days in the cell,” she said.

The nurse described the severe hardships faced by Palestinian detainees, saying their conditions were “very difficult”.

She said female prisoners were “treated with monstrosity” and were often forced to remove their headscarves and their jilbabs - a long garment worn by many Muslim women.

Other forms of punishment, she said, included spraying gas fumes into cells, starvation, and beatings.

“One of the female detainees was wounded so badly her head was split open, likely a fracture above her eye,” she recalled.

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The Israeli military alleged that Dr al-Hams, Tasneem's father, was a "Hamas operative" who knew where the body of Israeli soldier Hadar Goldin was buried.

Goldin was an Israeli soldier killed in combat during the 2014 war on Gaza and held by Hamas until his body was released earlier this month as part of the ceasefire and prisoner swap deal. 

Middle East Eye could not verify the Israeli military's claim.

Since the start of the war on Gaza, Israeli forces have repeatedly targeted hospitals and health workers.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, more than 1,500 health workers have been killed and over 360 detained since the war began.

In Israeli detention, Palestinians have reported widespread and severe mistreatment since October 2023, abuses that leading rights groups describe as systematic crimes. 

Reports detail starvation, medical neglect, physical violence, humiliation, sexual assault, theft and unprecedented levels of mass solitary confinement

Healthcare professionals have been especially targeted in Israeli prisons, with one report by Physicians for Human Rights Israel describing their treatment as "human rights violations".