Renowned Gaza doctor Adnan Al-Bursh tortured and killed in Israeli detention
Adnan Al-Bursh, a renowned Gaza surgeon, was tortured to death in Israeli detention, a Palestinian prisoner association announced on Thursday.
Al-Bursh, head of orthopaedic medicine at Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital and educated at King’s College London, was held in Israeli detention since December, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society reported.
His killing has been called a “deliberate assassination” after it was revealed he died on 19 April in Israel’s Ofer detention centre in the occupied West Bank. His body remains withheld by Israel.
The Palestinian ministry of health condemned his killing, urging the international community to hold Israeli forces accountable for his killing.
“We call on the international community, health and rights organisations to intervene and visit the prisoners, to protect them from torture,” a statement from the ministry read.
The ministry also reported that since the outbreak of Israel’s war on Gaza on 7 October, 496 medical workers have been killed, with at least 1,500 others wounded and 309 detained.
Al-Bursh, who studied in the UK, was taken away by Israeli forces at Al-Amal Hospital in Gaza in December, while providing medical treatment to Palestinians injured in Israel’s indiscriminate assault on the besieged enclave.
Prior to his detention, Al-Bursh was renowned for traveling to various hospitals in Gaza to treat patients, even amidst heavy Israeli bombing.
Muhammad Shehada, the chief of communications for the Geneva-based Euro Med Human Rights Monitor told The New Arab that Israel carried out a “criminal kidnapping, unlawful and indefinite detention and ceaseless torture” of Al-Bursh.
He also added that his killing was part of a systematic and deliberate campaign to collapse Gaza’s health sector.
“We documented dozens of Gazan detainees, including medical workers, who have been subjected to retaliatory torture and we collected testimonies about the killing of other medical personnel in detention whose fate has not been formally disclosed by Israel,” he explained.
“The crimes committed by Israel…would hinder the development of Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip in general, undermine its health system and deprive its vital sectors of specialised and distinguished cadres that will be difficult to replace in the near term,” he added.
According to Shehada, through their targeting of health workers, Israel has created a situation of panic and coercion amongst medical staff who may as a result feel compelled to leave just to survive.