Released Palestinian prisoner Islam Hijazi has delivered a harrowing account of the deliberate assassination of renowned orthopedic surgeon Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh inside Israel’s Ofer Prison, describing a calculated campaign of torture that ended the life of one of Gaza’s most dedicated medical heroes.

According to Hijazi’s testimony, upon Dr. Al-Bursh’s arrival at Ofer Prison, one of the jailers greeted him with the chilling words: “We’ve been waiting for you.” Within minutes, approximately 20 jailers surrounded the doctor and launched a savage assault, deliberately targeting sensitive areas of his body to maximize pain and injury. Dr. Al-Bursh’s screams of agony echoed under the relentless torture until his voice faded completely and could no longer be heard.

The occupation forces then threw the severely injured surgeon into the yard of Section 23 inside the prison. He was suffering from a complete inability to breathe. Fellow prisoners urgently demanded that a doctor be called to save his life, but their pleas were coldly rejected. Just a few hours later, Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh had been martyred in what Hijazi and Palestinian advocates describe as an obvious premeditated assassination.

Dr. Al-Bursh, head of orthopedics at Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital and one of the most prominent orthopedic surgeons in the Strip, was abducted after Israeli occupation forces besieged Al-Awda Hospital on December 19, 2023. The occupation troops called him by name over loudspeakers and threatened to demolish the hospital if he did not surrender himself. He had continued treating the wounded under fire until the very moment of his arrest.

The martyred doctor leaves behind five young children. They are no longer waiting for their father’s return home. Instead, they and the rest of the Palestinian people demand only the release of his body so they may bid a final farewell to a man who dedicated his life to healing the broken bodies of his people under the harshest conditions of siege and war.

This latest revelation adds to the growing body of evidence of systematic torture and extrajudicial killings targeting Palestinian medical workers and detainees held by the Israeli occupation. (ILKHA)