Warning: This article includes descriptions or mentions of sexual violence that some readers may find disturbing.Dr Adnan Al-Bursh’s life sat in stark contrast to the manner of the charismatic 49-year-old’s death.
The head of orthopaedics at Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital was working at the al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza in December when he and other medics were arrested by the Israeli army for, they said, “national security reasons”.
Four months later, Ofer Prison guards dragged Al-Bursh and dumped him in the prison yard, naked from the waist down, bleeding and unable to stand, according to a statement provided by Israeli human rights organisation, HaMoked.
Recognising him, some of the other prisoners carried Al-Bursh to a nearby room, and he died moments later.
Likely raped to death.A doctor. A stellar surgeon. The embodiment of Palestinian ethics.Likely raped to death.
The racism of Western media who are not covering this, and Western politicians who are not denouncing this, together with the thousand other testimonies and… pic.twitter.com/IRpCSi9nVZ
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) November 18, 2024
Entering ‘Hell’
Dr Al-Bursh had become a fixture in the lives of many through the video diaries he posted before his arrest.
His videos showed him with his colleagues, digging mass graves in the al-Shifa yard to bury people because Israel would not let their bodies be taken to a cemetery, operating on the injured and the dying with little or no equipment, and waiting together for the Israeli assault on a hospital where thousands had sought safety.
The assault c …