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Prominent Palestinian doctor tortured and killed in Israeli detention

Adnan al-Bursh was a Palestinian surgeon and the head of orthopaedic medicine at al-Shifa hospital

Middle East Eye

Adnan al-Bursh, a Palestinian surgeon and professor of orthopaedic medicine, was killed by torture while in Israeli detention, according to a statement from the Palestinian Prisoners' Society. In what has been termed a "deliberate assassination", Bursh, 50, died in the Israel-controlled Ofer prison in the occupied West Bank on 19 April, according to the Palestinian Civil Affairs Committee, and his body remains withheld. Another detainee, Ismail Abdul Bari Khader, 33, also died in custody, according to the joint statement, and his body was handed over on 2 May along with 64 other prisoners. “The two victims died of torture and crimes committed against Gazan detainees,” the statement said. Bursh was the head of orthopaedic medicine at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City and had been arrested in December, around the same time that he had reportedly been wounded by Israeli bombardment at the Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza. Until his arrest, Bursh regularly travelled around to different hospitals in the Gaza Strip to tend to patients, and at the time of his arrest, he was working at al-Awda hospital. Several medical staff and patients were also arrested alongside Bursh.

The Palestinian health ministry said in a statement that Bursh’s death raised to 496 the number of medical sector workers who had been killed by Israel since 7 October when the war broke out. It added that 1,500 others had been wounded while 309 had been arrested.

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We will die standing and we will not kneel....And as I said... all that remains in the valley are its stones... and we are its stones

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In the ruins of what had been Nasser hospital, the biggest in southern Gaza, Reuters saw emergency workers in white hazmat suits digging corpses out of the ground with hand tools and a digger truck. The emergency services said 73 more bodies had been found at the site in the past day, raising the number found over the week to 283.

Gaza authorities say the bodies recovered so far are from just one of at least three mass graves they have found at the site. "We expect to find another 200 bodies at the same mass grave in the coming two days before we will begin working at the two other cemeteries," Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run government media office, told Reuters. He accused Israel of carrying out "executions" at the hospital and covering up the crimes by burying bodies with a bulldozer. Israel strongly denies having carried out executions.