A recently released report by the UK-based Sky News revealed shocking details about the torture including sexual abuse and subsequent murder of a Palestinian surgeon imprisoned by Israel in a military prison in the occupied West Bank.
The report citing a captive at Israel’s Ofer Prison, detailed how Israeli forces left the severely tortured Dr Al-Bursh, naked from the waist down, to die alone in agonising pain in the prison’s yard.
"In mid-April 2024, Dr Adnan Al-Bursh arrived at Section 23 in Ofer Prison. The prison guards brought Dr Adnan Al-Bursh into the section in a deplorable state. He had clearly been assaulted with injuries around his body. He was naked in the lower part of his body," the captive detailed in a deposition to lawyers from the Israeli human rights organisation HaMoked.
"The prison guards threw him in the middle of the yard and left him there. Dr Adnan Al-Bursh was unable to stand up. One of the prisoners helped him and accompanied him to one of the rooms. A few minutes later, prisoners were heard screaming from the room they went into, declaring Dr Adnan Al-Bursh was martyred," the captive told the lawyers.
Dr Al-Bursh was reportedly one of the best-qualified and popular surgeons in Gaza. An image of him, dressed in surgical gown covered with blood, resting on the hospital veranda became the symbol of the unwavering commitment shown by the Palestinian doctors in the face of the brutal war.
Dr Al-Bursh was picked by the Israeli military during a raid at the Al-Awda hospital in Gaza’s north. He was previously forced to flee the Al-Shifa Hospital in November 2023, where he worked as the head of orthopaedic surgery when the hospital was besieged by the Israeli army. He was also ordered to leave the Indonesian hospital in Bait Lahia, where he documented Israeli forces besieging and firing indiscriminately at patients and staff, killing 12 people.
Dr Mohammad Obeid, a colleague of Dr Al-Bursh who was with him at the time of his detention by the Israeli military said they treated him "roughly" while taking him away.
"(The director) told us that the occupation forces have full data of all males aged between 14 and 65 at Awda hospital...They told him verbatim that if all men do not come down… they will destroy the Awda Hospital with all the women and children in it," Dr Obeid told Sky News breaking down.
As Dr Al-Bursh came out of the hospital, the army called his name and took him away, Dr Obeid said.
According to the report, Dr Al-Bursh was taken to the notorious Sde Teiman prison which has been described by Israeli lawyers to be "more horrific than Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.”
On August 6, Israeli media outlet Channel 12 released a harrowing video showing soldiers at the prison, situated in the Negev desert in southern Israel, gang-raping a Palestinian detainee.
Multiple media outlets, including CNN and the New York Times, have revealed shocking details of rape and sexual assault at Sde Teiman. Palestinian prisoners released from the detention camp have testified of witnessing multiple rapes, and cases in which Israeli soldiers made dogs sexually assault prisoners.
According to Sky News report, Dr Al-Bursh went through similar kind of brutal torture at the prison which left him with serious injuries and unable to walk.
"He was beaten very badly. He thought he may have broken ribs. He was unable to even go to the toilet alone," Dr Khalid Hamouda, a former inmate of the Sde Teiman camp, told Sky News.
Dr Al-Bursh was then sent to the Ofer Prison where he would die within weeks.
Israel has accused him of being a "terrorist" while Israeli human rights lawyer Nadia Daqqa pointed out that Dr Al-Bursh, like most of the detainees in Israel's military detention centres have not been charged with any crime.
According to Dr Hamouda, many detainees in these prisons are medical professionals picked up from various hospitals in Gaza.
According to Nadia Daqqa, Dr Al-Bursh's is one of the many cases of Palestinian detainees being tortured to death in Israeli prisons.
Israel has so far killed at least 43,764 Palestinians since the beginning of its recent war on Gaza. This includes more than 17,000 children, at least 11,400 women, over 180 journalists and more than a thousand healthcare workers. Isarel has also targetted hospitals and schools in airstrikes that killed hundreds, mostly women and children.