One of the first doctors delegated to treat Palestinians injured in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza last month was brought before the State Security Prosecution on Wednesday, two weeks after he was forcibly disappeared.
Dr. Hossam Eddin Shaaban disappeared on May 15 from Arish General Hospital in North Sinai, which was among the hospitals in the governorate designated by the Health Ministry to receive those wounded in the Israeli offensive on Gaza.
On Wednesday, the State Security Prosecution ordered Shaaban to be held in remand detention for 15 days pending investigation on charges of “joining a terrorist organization and spreading false news,” the source said.
According to two medical sources who spoke to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity shortly after Shaaban’s disappearance in May, the doctor was last seen in Arish General Hospital and disappeared before the medical team headed to their accommodation in Arish on Saturday. The sources said that Shaaban is an orthopedic doctor at the public National Bank of Egypt Hospital in Cairo and was among a number of doctors selected and assigned by the Health Ministry to travel to North Sinai to treat Palestinians wounded in the Israeli assault on Gaza.
The two sources told Mada Masr they suspected that Shaaban’s arrest was related to several tweets he posted that described in detail the security convoy that accompanied the medical teams from Bir al-Abd to Arish, as well as tweets in which he lamented the absence of protests in Egypt in solidarity with Gaza, which are banned under the current protest law.
Several Egyptian nationals were detained by security forces in relation to actions they had undertaken to show support for Palestine during the 11-day assault on Gaza, including 28-year-old Omar Morsi, who was arrested after raising a Palestinian flag and released the following week on LE1,000 bail, and writer and journalist Nour al-Hoda Zaki, who was detained for several hours after raising a Palestinian flag in Cairo’s Tahrir Square during the Eid al-Fitr holiday.
A few days after his disappearance, Shaaban’s father told Mada Masr that his parents did not know his whereabouts and had not heard from him, while “his phone was off beforehand.” Advocacy lawyers tried to inquire about and locate Shaaban at both the military prosecution and the offices of the National Security Agency in North Sinai at the time of his disappearance, yet both security bodies denied any knowledge of Shaaban’s whereabouts and asked the lawyers to leave, the two medical sources said.
Sources told Mada Masr previously that the North Sinai Health Directorate prepared several hospitals in the governorate to receive and provide medical treatment to residents of Gaza injured during the latest Israeli airstrikes.
Egyptian authorities began allowing wounded Palestinians into North Sinai via the Rafah crossing point on May 17 to receive treatment in designated hospitals. According to medical sources, general, vascular and plastic surgeons, orthopedists, neurologists and anesthetists were deployed to the mission.
So far, 29 Palestinians injured in Israel’s assault on Gaza, which killed over 250 people and left over 1,900 wounded, have been admitted to Egyptian hospitals.
