Dr Aayesha Soni
Dr Adnan Al-Bursh, the head of department of Orthopaedics at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, was imprisoned without charge or trial, and murdered by Israel.
Abducted in the Al-Awda hospital courtyard in December 2023 whilst he was working, his family learnt in May that he had died whilst in an Israeli prison. When Israeli newspaper Haaretz inquired from the Israeli Prison Services as to the cause of his death, the reply they received was: “no comment ... (as they do not account for) the circumstances of the death of detainees who are not Israeli citizens”.
Dr Al-Bursh was an experienced orthopaedic surgeon who specializes in joints and compound fractures. His colleagues and wife say that since the outbreak of the war, he devoted all his time to treating the many wounded civilians from the Israeli bombing, which has brought the health system in Gaza to the brink of collapse.
In 2024, we are witness to a regime that abducts doctors without charge, and then provides no information on their mysterious and unexplained deaths in detention. The realisation of the similarity of Israel’s actions to the Apartheid regime’s Death Squad sent shivers down my spine.
The case of Dr Al-Bursh did not occur in isolation. The UN Human Rights Office has decried the reported killing of 500 healthcare workers in Gaza since October last year, which includes 50 specialist doctors. This includes doctors who have been killed inside hospitals whilst working, like plastic and reconstructive surgeon Dr Ahmad Maqadmah who was murdered by Israel in Al-Shifa hospital.
Despite Israel’s claims that they are targeting ‘militants’ in these hospitals, there has yet to be any evidence to support this audacious claim, and has even been uncovered as a frank lie by Washington Post investigative journalism. The UN OHCHR reported that their office has gathered credible information that IDF raids on hospitals have often led to mass detention and enforced disappearances, including of medical staff.
However, Israel isn’t only detaining and killing healthcare workers in hospitals and clinics. There appears to be a systematic trend of bombing their residential buildings too, often murdering them with their families, and destroying years of generational knowledge in Gaza.
Dr Hammam Alloh, the only nephrologist in Gaza, was killed last year in November when a missile struck his home. Dr Iyad Rantisi, head of an Obstetrics and Gynecology clinic; Dr Mahmoud Abu Najaila, Dr Ahmad Al-Sahar and Dr Ziad Al-Tatari, three senior physicians who worked for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF); Mr. Hani Al Ja’afarwi, head of Emergency and Ambulance Services in Gaza – why am I taking the time to type their names and positions?
Their deaths are no mistake- it is a methodical plan by Israel to permanently disable and cripple the healthcare system in Gaza, killing educated people with years of irreplaceable knowledge and skills.
These killings have occurred against the backdrop of systematic attacks on hospitals and other medical facilities too, which is in direct violation of multiple international and humanitarian laws. According to the World Health Organisation, only 10 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals remain partly functioning after being bombed – can we fathom the destruction of 20 hospitals being completely destroyed? How can Israel plausibly defend its actions on any grounds?
Dr James Smith, an emergency medicine doctor from the United Kingdom who recently volunteered in Gaza described the injuries he saw as ‘unlike anything he’d seen before.’ “It’s inconceivable to me that these are not targeted attacks ... If you target healthcare workers and...the healthcare system and ... facilities, you are demonstrating a form of psychological warfare wherein you say nobody and nowhere is safe,” Smith said. Israel has been meting out a disastrous and morally corrupt form of psychological warfare on the people of Gaza for a year now, in its most extreme form.
As a doctor, I am in awe of the bravery of the healthcare workers in Gaza. To know that you will be an active target to be arrested and/or killed without impunity merely for doing your job in trying to assist civilians (the majority of Israel’s victims) is an act of incomparable courage and resilience. I am also proud to be a South African, and to witness Gift of the Givers work with our universities in bringing medical students from Palestine to complete their studies here.
As of today, the Universities of Cape Town, Witwatersrand and Pretoria are accommodating 27, 23 and 10 Palestinian sixth year medical students respectively, in their final years of study. It is a small, yet profoundly significant and symbolic, step in the direction of attempting to rebuild Israel’s methodical destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system-just one of many human rights violations it flagrantly continues to flaunt.
* Dr Aayesha Soni is a specialist neurologist and medical volunteer with the Gift of the Givers.
** The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media