The released prisoner Dr. Ahmad Mahna recounts to Al Jazeera the details and circumstances of his harsh detention.

The released prisoner Dr. Ahmad Mahna, director of Al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza Strip, recounts the details of his arrest and imprisonment by the Israeli occupation forces while he was performing his humanitarian duty.

After nearly two years of detention in Israeli occupation prisons, Dr. Mahna was released under the agreement recently reached between the Palestinian resistance and the Israeli occupation.

Dr. Mahna states that on December 16, 2023, a force from the Israeli army came to Al-Awda Hospital and requested him, as the director, to provide them with a list of everyone present in the hospital.

He complied with their request and informed them of the civilian patients, including 45 children and 18 women who had given birth, as well as a medical staff consisting of 78 individuals, in addition to the hospital administration.

Dr. Mahna confirms that the Israeli forces detained him inside a house they had fortified next to the hospital, blindfolded him, and bound his hands with cuffs.

After staying there for 12 hours, he was taken the next day by about 50 Israeli soldiers to the hospital accompanied by armored vehicles and tanks, and they demanded that he bring out all the medical staff inside the hospital.

Dr. Mahna adds in his testimony that the occupation soldiers removed the medical staff and their companions and stripped them of their clothes despite the freezing cold, and they also brought out the patients who could walk and interrogated all of them next to the hospital for 8 hours.

Dr. Mahna states that he asked a responsible officer to allow him to bring blankets for the elderly and patients, but he was refused.

As a result of those interrogations, the occupation soldiers arrested 3 members of the hospital staff and two patients.

Despite the soldiers' claims that the matter was over, Dr. Mahna says he was taken with other prisoners into Israel after their hands were tied and their eyes were covered, and for 20 days they did not know where they were.

He recounts that he was subjected to hours-long interrogation sessions with strange and serious accusations such as: Did you treat prisoners from the soldiers? Do you have bodies of soldiers? Do you have armed individuals inside the hospital?

The interrogation sessions were violent, interspersed with threats and a clear violation of international humanitarian law in a blatant and explicit manner.

Dr. Mahna is astonished by the charges leveled against him, especially since the occupation soldiers seized the cameras of Al-Awda Hospital and have complete information about the patients and those who entered the hospital since October 7.

He also states that he and the other prisoners were taken afterward to a place while their hands were bound and their eyes were blindfolded, and they were left in the open without cover or bedding despite the harsh cold.