Palestinian Surgeon Beaten to Death at Ofer Prison

About 20 guards beat Dr. Adnan al-Bursh at Ofer prison. He died while the prisoners shouted for a doctor.

Al-Bursh, head of orthopedics at al-Shifa Medical Complex, was arrested at al-Awda Hospital in December 2023. He died at Ofer prison on April 19, 2024. The occupation is still holding his body.

Prisoners in Section 23 of Ofer prison banged on the doors and shouted for a doctor while Dr. Adnan al-Bursh took his last breaths in front of them. About 20 guards had beaten him for nearly half an hour. He could not move. His breathing was weak. The guard told them there was no doctor.

“We need a doctor. The doctor is dying.”

Voices rose across the section, the banging carried on, and the occupation finally sent for a doctor. Guards pulled al-Bursh out of the section to examine him. His heart was no longer beating.

He had been martyred.

Minutes later his body went into a white bag and was carried away. As if nothing had happened.

On May 2, 2024, the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Club announced the martyrdom of Dr. Adnan al-Bursh. Their account put his death at Ofer prison on April 19, 2024. They say his killing was a deliberate assassination, part of the systematic targeting of Palestinian doctors and medical teams.

Before he became the patient

Months earlier, al-Bursh stood on the other side of this story.

A consultant and head of orthopedics at al-Shifa Medical Complex, he was one of the doctors who stayed inside Gaza’s hospitals as the shelling drew closer. He was wounded at the Indonesian Hospital. He did not leave. As one hospital after another went out of service, he moved through the north of Gaza carrying his medical instruments and treating the wounded. He reached al-Awda Hospital. The occupation arrested him there in December 2023.

Al-Bursh was a father of six. His wife kept asking him to come home. He kept choosing his patients. He did not know that hospital would be the last place his family saw him.

From interrogation to Ofer

Al-Bursh was moved through interrogation centers after his arrest. He was beaten and abused there. A prisoner held near him says that once the interrogation ended, an intelligence officer called al-Bursh in and told him his turn was over, and that he would not be seeing him again.

A day or two later, guards moved him and a group of other detainees to Ofer prison.

None of them knew that what waited for him at Ofer would be the last thing he lived through.

“I am the doctor”

The bus pulled into Ofer and the guards began asking for Dr. Adnan. He was still inside. When his turn came to step down, he answered them himself.

“I am the doctor.”

They were waiting for him. About 20 guards closed in around him, and the beating started. Hands. Feet. Batons and other objects.

This was not a brief beating. It went on for close to half an hour. The prisoners could hear him screaming and calling for help. Then his voice began to fade. The beating carried on. The doctor’s voice did not. By then he had lost consciousness, or he was already dying.

“The doctor is dying”

Al-Bursh reached Section 23 in critical condition. Guards threw him into the yard, and he could not stand. Another prisoner lifted him and got him into a room. He was barely breathing.

The prisoners started calling out to the guards.

“We need a doctor.”

The guard told them there was no doctor, then walked off. They did not give up. Voices rose from the rooms and the detainees called across to each other: “Call out with us. The doctor is dying.” The whole section filled with screaming and fists on doors. In the end, the occupation brought a doctor.

Too late. Guards took al-Bursh out and put him on a heart monitor. His heart was no longer beating.

Prisoners released later say that in Section 23, detainees from Gaza faced torture, humiliation, and raids that never stopped.

Not even his grave is his own

Killing him inside the prison was not enough for the occupation. It seized his body too.

More than two years have passed since Adnan al-Bursh was martyred. His family still cannot say goodbye. They cannot carry him to his grave. They cannot stand over his body and recite the Fatiha. The occupation authorities are still holding his remains.

The doctor who spent his life trying to save Palestinian bodies found no one to save him in his last minutes. He knew how to stop bleeding. They left him bleeding. He knew how to save a heart. They let his heart stop. He treated the wounded, then became the wounded man before the prisoners’ eyes, and was left to die.

Adnan al-Bursh was a doctor martyred in prison. He was also a detainee from Gaza who vanished behind the occupation’s walls and came back out a corpse, while his family waited for the truth and his body stayed a prisoner even after his death.

In Gaza, al-Bursh opened operating room doors to save lives. In Ofer, the doors were closed on him until his life stopped. He did not die because he failed to save his patients.

He died because when he became the patient, they would not let anyone save him.