Adnan Al-Bursh, head of orthopedics at Al Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest medical facility died in an Israeli prison after more than four months of detention, two Palestinian prisoner associations said on Thursday.
The associations said in a joint statement that the senior Palestinian doctor had been detained by Israeli forces while temporarily working at Al-Awada Hospital in north Gaza.
They called his death an “assassination” and said his body remained in Israeli custody.
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At a statement released on April 19, the Israeli Prison Service said that a prisoner detained for national security reasons had died in Ofer prison, giving no detail on the cause of death. A prison service spokesperson confirmed that the statement referred to Bursh, and said that the matter was under investigation.
Medical groups, including the World Health Organization, have repeatedly called for a halt to attacks on Gaza healthcare workers, with more than 200 killed so far in the Gaza conflict, according to an estimate from Insecurity Insight, a research group that collects and analyses data on attacks on aid workers around the world.
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 Oct 7. It added that 1,500 others had been wounded while 309 had been arrested.
Israel accuses Hamas of using hospitals for military purposes and says its operations against them have been justified by the presence of fighters. Hamas and medical staff deny the allegations.
Israel’s military operation in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, which by its tallies killed 1,200 with 253 taken hostage. The subsequent Israeli bombardment has killed more than 33,000 Palestinians, according to Palestinian medics, and displaced the majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million people.
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