‘Get up, you dog!’: Released Gaza detainee recounts horrific abuse and killing of Dr. Adnan al-Bursh
“There were about 20 prison guards who surrounded Dr. Adnan and started beating him with hands, feet, sticks, boots, electricity, everything.”
A released Palestinian detainee has revealed the horrific torture and abuse inflicted by the Israelis that led to the killing of Dr. Adnan al-Bursh in an Israeli dungeon.
Islam Al-Hijazi, who was abducted in March 2024 from Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City during its siege by the genocidal Israeli occupation forces, was recently released from an Israeli dungeon. He was placed in the same cell in Ofer Prison where renowned Palestinian doctor al-Bursh had been detained and savagely beaten to death by the Israelis.
Speaking with his cellmates, who were present during the torture of Dr. al-Bursh, Al-Hijazi learned of the horrific assault inflicted out to the deceased doctor.
He told Middle East Eye in an interview:
“While getting to know the young men and talking to them, one of the prisoners said, ‘This is the cell where Dr. Adnan was killed.’ I was frankly shocked, and asked him, ‘Dr. Adnan was killed?’ He told me, ‘Yes, a few months ago.’ So I asked him to tell me exactly what had happened.
“He told me, ‘The doctor had been interrogated on the charge that he knew some prisoners in Gaza. The doctor had made it clear that as a doctor, he treats any patient who comes to him, without regard to their identity or nationality; he looks only at their injury.’ Naturally, after they had interrogated and tortured him, they summoned him and said, ‘We have one final request: we want you to sit with the prisoners’ families and reassure them about their children.’ He said, ‘No problem.’ Once they were finished with him, the intelligence officer told him, ‘That’s it, you’re free to go, your mission is over. We won’t see you after this; we’ll transfer you to Ofer Prison.”
Al-Hijazi continued:
“Two days later, the transfer bus arrived and transferred him and seven other people. When Dr. Adnan came off, they asked him, ‘Are you the doctor?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ They said, ‘We’ve been waiting for you.’ There were about 20 prison guards who surrounded Dr. Adnan and started beating him with hands, feet, sticks, boots, electricity, everything. The young man said the doctor was beaten for about half an hour as he cried out for help. After half an hour, his voice faded and there was no sound left, but they could still hear the sound of the beating. It seemed the doctor had passed out; he wasn’t moving. But despite that, they continued beating him. He told me that after they were finished, we were transferred to Section 23, and they started waking the doctor up, telling him, ‘Get up, you dog! Get up, you this and that!’, swearing at him.”
The Israelis had inflicted fatal injuries on the doctor and left him without medical treatment:
“The doctor was completely exhausted and could hardly breathe. The prison guards threw him in the courtyard of Section 23. Prisoners came out to take him into the room. As soon as he entered the room, Dr. Adnan collapsed on the floor. He was barely breathing and was having great difficulty breathing. So the men started causing a commotion in the prison, calling on the other cells to shout with them, asking for a doctor. They took Dr. Adnan out and checked him with a heart monitor; the doctor had passed away. May God have mercy on him.”
The Israelis threatened detainees to deter them from protesting over the murder of the much-loved Palestinian doctor:
“At that moment, all the senior officers at the prison arrived, and the prison warden came and started threatening the prisoners that any attempt at rioting, rebellion, or unrest would be met with a severe crackdown and denial of food. The prison guards started telling the inmates that anyone thinking of rebelling would meet the same fate as this dog, and so on.
“And that’s how the story ended.
“They put Dr. Adnan in a white bag and took him to the cemetery.”
To this day, the Israelis have not released Dr. Al-Bursh’s body.
On May 22 this year, Asim Alnabih wrote that he met Dr. Al-Bursh’s widow. Despite having the opportunity to leave Gaza, she refused to do so without seeing her deceased husband one last time and giving him a dignified burial.
“Today, I met by chance the wife of the martyred Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh, who died under torture in Israeli occupation prisons,” Alnabih wrote on Twitter.
“She told me about an opportunity she had to leave Gaza, but she absolutely refuses to do so. When I asked her for the reason, surprised, she replied: ‘It is impossible for me to leave before I see the doctor, bid him farewell, and bury him. I cannot leave until I give him peace and find my own peace.’”