By Palestine Chronicle Staff  

Hamas said the only crime of the doctors who were abducted by Israeli forces was that they  were “fulfilling their humanitarian duty towards their people’s wounded and sick.”

The Palestinian Resistance Movement Hamas has called for Israel to be held accountable for the deaths of two Palestinian detainees, including Doctor Adnan al-Barsh who was abducted and tortured by Israeli forces.

Their deaths are “a confirmation of the horrific war crimes that continue against our people”  including those “kidnapped from schools and hospitals to detention centers devoid of the most basic human rights, among them doctors,” Hamas said in a statement.

The latter’s “only crime was fulfilling their humanitarian duty towards their people’s wounded and sick.”

Died on April 19

Dr. al-Barsh, born in Gaza in 1974, studied at the Faculty of Medicine at Janš University in Romania.

Upon his return to Gaza, his educational career did not stop. He continued to specialize in orthopedic and joint surgery, obtained the Jordanian Board and the Palestinian Board, then a British fellowship in complex fracture surgery in London.

Thanks to his outstanding skills, Dr. al-Barsh acquired a reputation throughout Palestine. He assumed the presidency of the orthopedic department at Al-Shifa Hospital, and remained one of its most prestigious doctors.

إلى رحمة الله د. عدنان البرش شهيد التعذيب بسجون الجيش الاسرائيلي بعد اختطافه من المشفى أثناء تأدية واجبه الانساني بحق جرحى غزة،

تتحمل النقابات الطبية العربية أولاً على عاتقها مسؤولية صمتها المُخزي إزاء قتل واختطاف وإبادة الطواقم الطبية بغزة طيلة 7 أشهر
pic.twitter.com/dpg485Y0Tg

— Nour Naim| نُور (@NourNaim88) May 2, 2024

When the war broke out on October 7, he decided to remain at Al-Shifa before being forced to leave it in November, during the first Israeli invasion of the military complex.

Dr. al-Barsh continued his mission at the Kamal Adwan Hospital, then to the Al-Awda Hospital, in the Tal Al-Zaatar area, east of the Jabaliya refugee camp, in the northern Gaza Strip, until his arrest.

He was detained, along with other doctors, by the Israeli army last December as he was treating patients. He died “as a result of torture” at the Israeli Ofer prison on April 19, but news of his death was only announced on Thursday.

The Palestinian Prisoner Society on Thursday confirmed that two detainees from the Gaza Strip died in an Israeli prison. They were identified Dr al-Barsh and Ismail Khader, 33. Khader’s body was returned along with 64 others on Thursday. However, al-Barsh’s body was not among those returned, the RNN report said.

This is Adnan al-Barsh. He was the most renowned orthopedic sugeon in Palestine. He was tortured to death by 'israel'.

His crime? A Palestinian doctor. #GazaGenocide pic.twitter.com/5mKuBY5Nzd

— Sara_Haj 🇱🇧 ރ (@SaraahHaj) May 3, 2024

‘Ongoing Crimes’

Hamas urged the international community to take immediate action “to criminalize” the “ongoing crimes against thousands of our kidnapped people.”

The movement also demanded that Israel disclose information about the fate of abductees and detainees, and “return them to their families.”

Israeli leaders are to be held “accountable,” Hamas said as their “crimes have exceeded all limits, with no regard for international laws, treaties, or human norms.”

Gaza’s Health Ministry said the death toll of Gaza’s health workers in the ongoing Israeli onslaught reached 496 following the killing of al-Bursh.

“The murder of Dr. Adnan al-Bursh in the Israeli prison has raised the death toll of the health sector in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7 to 496,” the ministry said in a statement.

Over 34,500 Killed

Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 34,596 Palestinians have been killed, and 77,816 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.

Moreover, at least 11,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.

Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.

Gaza Genocide Continues: Casualties Reported Across Various Areas

The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine, mostly in northern Gaza, resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.

The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.

Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.

(PC, Anadolu)