In what was denounced as a “deliberate assassination,” Palestinian doctor-surgeon Adna al-Bursh [à g.] died on April 19, 2024 as a result of his torture in the Israeli Ofer detention center, in the occupied West Bank – Photo: via social networks
Par The New Arab
A new report released reveals the extremely shocking final moments of Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh, a surgeon who was tortured to death while in Israeli detention.
A new report released Thursday revealed chilling new details about the circumstances surrounding the murder of renowned Gaza surgeon Adnan Al-Bursh in an Israeli prison in May.
An inmate at Israeli Ofer prison in the occupied West Bank told Sky News how Israeli forces left Dr. Al-Bursh, who had been severely tortured, to die alone, in excruciating pain and naked from the waist down, in the prison yard.
The captive, who had known Dr Al-Bursh in Gaza, provided details in a deposition to lawyers for the Israeli human rights organization HaMoked.
“In mid-April 2024, Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh arrived at Section 23 of Ofer Prison. Prison guards brought Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh to the section in a deplorable condition.
He had clearly been assaulted and had injuries all over his body. He was naked in the lower part of his body.
Adnan Al-Bursh, surgeon from Al-Shifa, tortured to death in Israeli prison
“The prison guards threw him in the middle of the yard and left him there. Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh was unable to get up. One of the prisoners helped him and accompanied him to one of the rooms. A few minutes later, the prisoners were heard shouting from the room they entered, declaring that Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh (was dead).”
Dr. Al-Bursh was widely considered one of the most skilled and well-known surgeons in the Palestinian enclave.
In 2018, a photo of him covered in the blood of an Israeli bombing victim went viral and catapulted him to a sinister form of stardom.
When Israel’s war on Gaza broke out in October last year, Dr Al-Bursh was working at al-Shifa Hospital as head of the orthopedic surgery department. In November, Israel besieged the hospital, forcing Dr. Al-Bursh, along with all staff and patients, to flee.
After working at Indonesia’s Bait Lahia hospital, where he watched Israeli forces besiege and indiscriminately fire on patients and staff, killing 12, he was again ordered to leave as Israel destroyed systematically the health system in Gaza.
Dr Al-Bursh then went to Al-Awda Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, where Israeli forces surrounded and besieged patients.
This is where Doctor Al-Bursh was taken by Israeli forces.
“The director told us that the Israeli army had complete data of all men aged 14 to 65 in Awda hospital,” his colleague, Dr. Mohammad Obeid, told Sky News. “They told him that if all the men did not come down, they would destroy the Awda hospital with all the women and children there,” he added.
After Dr. Al-Bursh left the hospital, Israeli soldiers “called his name” and took him away “roughly,” Obeid said.
Dr. Al-Bursh was then taken to the infamous Sde Teiman detention center in the Negev, which whistleblowers and former detainees likened to a concentration camp.
Doctor Iyad al-Rantisi died under torture in an Israeli prison
Reports of physical, mental and sexual abuse are widespread at Sde Teiman, with cases of rape so severe that prisoners have died and been seriously injured.
Dr. Khalid Hamouda, a former detainee of the Sde Teiman camp, told Sky News that many prisoners held in this camp were medical professionals.
It was in this camp that Al-Bursh suffered brutal torture and was severely beaten by Israeli guards. The extent of the torture suffered is not known.
“He thought he had broken ribs,” Dr. Hamouda said. “He was unable to go to the toilet alone. »
It was after this that Dr. Al-Bursh was sent to Ofer Prison, where he died a few weeks later.
Israel accused Dr. Al-Bursh of being a “terrorist,” but, like most captives in Sde Teiman and Ofer prisons, he was never charged with any criminal offense.
Since October 7, dozens of Palestinian captives have been killed in Israeli prisons and, in many cases, subjected to extreme torture.
Nearly 50,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel since it launched its war on Gaza.
November 15, 2024 – The New Arab – Translation: Chronicle of Palestine
