A CHILD psychotherapist working for an Edinburgh charity has been released after almost six months in detention in an Israeli prison.
Mohammad el Sharif, who works for Edinburgh Firefly International, was among detainees from the Gaza Strip freed last week and has been reunited with his wife, Alaa, and their three little boys.
Firefly International director Jane Salmonson said that while it was a “huge relief” he was safe, he had appeared to have aged “years” during his detention.
El Sharif was the director of a child mental health clinic in Gaza which was bombed after the region’s invasion by Israel in response to the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.
Despite being displaced several times, he had managed to keep contact with Firefly staff until he was picked up by the Israel Defence Force (IDF) on November 27 last year while trying to move his young family to a “safer” part of the stricken region.
Along with other residents, they were walking westwards from Gaza City when soldiers stopped them at a checkpoint, separated the women and children on one side of the road, put the men on the other, then took all the men away.
Salmonson said the news he had been released was “wonderful”.
“Mohammad appears from his photo to have aged years during almost six months of detention, but we at Firefly are all so pleased and relieved that he is free – that is all that matters just now,” she said.
“Team Firefly International are enjoying a moment of huge relief, feeling better than we have felt since Mohammad’s arrest and detention without charge, last November. Not knowing if someone is alive or dead has been very hard for us in Scotland and will have been far worse for his family in Gaza.
“Please continue to keep us in your sights, as the carnage continues in Gaza, now compounded by starvation.”
In an Associated Press video of the release, el Sharif said his freedom was a “new date of birth” for him because he had found his family safe and alive.
“While I was in captivity I thought I would not find any of my family members and relatives,” he said.
However he added that his “great joy” was incomplete because of the detainees still being held in Israeli prisons.
“The captives gave us a message that everyone must work to release them peacefully and they all want to live in security, safety and peace,” he said.
Salmonson added: “His message of peace is a very strong one, especially bearing in mind what he has suffered in almost six months of detention kept incommunicado from his family.”
Along with the release of el Sharif, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) confirmed the release of paramedic Asaad al-Nasasra, who was detained on March 23 this year while performing humanitarian duties during the Israeli massacre of medical teams in the Tel Sultan area of Rafah. The massacre resulted in the deaths of eight members of PRCS ambulance staff.
The number of people detained from Gaza acknowledged by the Israeli prison system now stands at 1747, not including those held in military camps.
A recent report issued by the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) revealed severe conditions endured by Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails.
The report noted that in the 19 months since the ongoing genocide, the conditions of detention have not improved and have in fact worsened in many cases.
At one point el Sharif was being held in the notorious Sde Teiman prison which has been condemned internationally for alleged torture and gang rape of detainees, including children and health workers.
Prisoner testimonies of widespread human rights violations have been corroborated by Israeli whistleblowers and an investigation by CNN. Leaked CCTV footage has shown one gang rape of a Palestinian by Israeli soldiers.
Gazans who have been detained since the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel have been classed as “unlawful combatants” and kept as suspects even if there is no evidence of any involvement with Hamas.
Some have died and others have had limbs amputated as a result of injuries sustained from being shackled, according to reports.
