Elderly Palestinian woman refutes Israeli claim they provided her aid

An elderly Palestinian woman, Umm Muhammad Musmah, has categorically refuted the Israeli army’s propaganda that soldiers had found her last month while shackled inside a building and provided her with medical aid, Anadolu news agency reported.

Umm Muhammad. who is currently receiving treatment in the Gaza European Hospital in the city of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip, told the agency that it was the Israeli army soldiers who had detained her, handcuffed and beaten her then filmed her for propaganda purposes.

She said she was chained and kept outdoors in the cold weather and deprived of food throughout her detention which lasted for nearly two weeks.

Recounting the harsh experience, Umm Muhammad said: “I was arrested [by occupation forces] with many citizens from the Ma’an area, east of the city of Khan Yunis, and [the soldiers] tied my hands, while the weather was very cold. I tried to untie myself, but could not.”

“I was left without food, and was beaten during the arrest,” she added.

In a post published on X on 26 January, the Israeli occupation army added a video of the elderly Palestinian woman being carried on an ambulance stretcher, accompanied by Israeli soldiers.

Israeli army spokesman, Avichay Adraee, claimed that an Israeli army’s drone had located the woman while combing an area in Gaza after she had taken shelter in the building while her hands were shackled and she was suffering from bad health.

الفرق بيننا وبين #دواعش_حماس في صورة واحدة: في الأسبوع الماضي خلال نشاط قواتنا داخل غزة أطلق جنودنا مسيرة درون لتمشيط المنطقة. وخلال التصوير شاهدت القوات شخصية ما، فنادتها بمكبرات الصوت باللغتين العربية والعبرية من أجل استبعاد احتمال كونها مخطوفًا أو مخربًا.

ولاحقًا، تبين للقوة… pic.twitter.com/PYoXaawX4b

— افيخاي ادرعي (@AvichayAdraee) January 26, 2024

“While providing medical care to her, the elderly woman told the force that all her family members had fled to the south, and that Hamas saboteurs arrived at her house wearing military uniforms and handcuffed her two days ago and ordered her to say that our soldiers did that,” he claimed, adding that the Israeli forces provided medical treatment to the elderly woman and released her later.

Israeli forces have repeatedly published claims which have later been disproven. Including claiming it didn’t bomb Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital on 17 October 2023 and kill 500 Palestinians in Gaza.

Over the past few months, Palestinians have been released from Israeli captivity and left to make their own way to shelters or to find their families in Gaza. The detainees have shown signs of torture and pictures from their detention show them being humiliated and degraded, stripped of their clothes and left outside in the winter cold.

Just this week, a detained Palestinian civilian was sent into Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis with his wrists tied together and ordered to tell those taking shelter in the hospital to evacuate it. He was then killed by sniper fire, while three Palestinians who were heeding his advice and who tried to travel through the designated evacuation route were all killed.

Infographic: Medical equipment Israel bans from entering Gaza