Senior Gaza doctor died while under Israeli interrogation: report

A senior doctor from Gaza died while under Shin Bet investigation in November, six days after Israeli forces arrested him from the Palestinian enclave, Haaretz reports.

Dr Iyad Rantisi, 53, was the head of a women's hospital, part of the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza.

He was arrested on 11 November and declared dead six days later at Shikma Prison, a Shin Bet interrogation facility.

Haaretz says that following Rantisi's death, "Ashkelon Magistrate's Court issued a six-month gag order prohibiting publication of all details of the case, including the existence of the gag order." The order expired in May.

Dr Husam Abu Safia, the manager of the Kamal Adwan hospital, said that Rantisi was arrested at a military checkpoint as he was trying to cross from the north to the south of Gaza following the Israeli army's evacuation orders.

The Shin Bet said they arrested him over suspicion of involvement in hiding hostages.

Rantisi is the second known case of a Gaza physician dying in Israeli prisons, following Dr Adnan al-Bursh, a surgeon who led the orthopaedic department at Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital, who died on 19 April in Ofer Prison in the occupied West Bank.

No authorities have yet provided any information on the circumstances related to Rantisi's death.