Dying in ‘hell’: The fate of Palestinian medics jailed by Israel
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/24/dying-in-hell-palestinian-medics-jailed-by-israel
One of Gaza’s most prominent doctors, Adnan al-Bursh, may have been raped to death, recent revelations show. He’s not the only one.
Al-Bursh was arrested by Israeli forces at Kamal Adwan Hospital and entered a prison system that Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem describes as “hell”. Israel often imprisons healthcare workers like him, holding them in horrific conditions in the name of “investigation”.
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.
https://x.com/FranceskAlbs/status/1858304872963010840
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Israel often detains healthcare workers like Dr Al-Bursh, holding them in horrific conditions for “investigation”.
“Most of the doctors and nurses [held by Israel who spoke to PHRI] reported that the investigation was ‘fishing’ for information, but they weren’t accused [of] any charges,” Naji Abbas, Physicians for Human Rights Israel’s prisoners’ department director said.
“Our lawyer visited dozens of healthcare workers who [are] still in Israeli detention for long months without charge or having a fair trial, most of them didn’t ever see a lawyer,” he added.
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza reports that Israel has detained at least 310 Palestinian healthcare workers since the war on Gaza began in October 2023.
Many of them have reported abuse and cruel treatment including the use of stress positions, withholding food and water and sexual violence, including rape.
“The healthcare workers we’ve spoken to have been held for anywhere between seven days and five months,” Milena Ansari of Human Rights Watch (HRW) said, whose August report on the arbitrary detention and torture of healthcare workers documented the matter.
“Many aren’t even charged, they’re just asked general questions, like: ‘Who’s your Imam?’ ‘What mosque do you go to?’ or even ‘Are you a member of Hamas?’ but without providing any evidence,” she said.
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Accounts of the widespread torture and mistreatment of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons are longstanding.
However, all the analysts Al Jazeera spoke to noted two distinct stages in the dramatic deterioration in conditions and surging abuse: firstly after the appointment of Itamar Ben-Gvir as national security minister in 2022, followed by the explosion of maltreatment of detainees that followed the onset of the Israeli war on Gaza in October 2023.
“They don’t care if you’re from Gaza or Jerusalem, whether you’re a doctor or a labourer – if you’re a Palestinian, you’re the enemy, ” Shai Parness of the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem said.
“It’s brutal and it’s systematic,” he said of a system that B’Tselem’s August report, Welcome To Hell, characterized as “a network of torture camps”. “It’s not just violence, humiliation and sexual abuse, it’s everything,” Ansari said.
“Accounts of physical and sexual violence were common. Of those who had been abused physically, injuries around the head, shoulders and, in the cases of men, from between the legs and the bottom are fairly common,” Ansari added.
She detailed the case of one paramedic who told HRW of having encountered another detainee, bleeding from his anus, who described how three Israeli guards had taken it in turns to rape him with their M16 rifles.
Horror continued in the article
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/24/dying-in-hell-palestinian-medics-jailed-by-israel
