Hamas wants Israel held accountable for death of Palestinian prisoners due to torture

By Abdul Salam Fayez

GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) - Hamas on Thursday called for Israel to be held accountable for the death of two Palestinian prisoners, including Dr. Adnan al-Bursh, due to torture.

“The deaths of our people abducted from Gaza in Israeli jails under torture confirm the atrocious war crimes continuing against our people,” the movement said in a statement.

The statement noted: “Israel forcibly took many of our people from schools and hospitals to detention centers…, including doctors, whose crime was their humanitarian duty towards people.”

Hamas demanded information about Palestinian prisoners' fate and an international investigation against Israel's leaders.

Death toll of Gaza's health workers in the ongoing Israeli onslaught reached 496 following the killing of doctor Adnan al-Bursh in the Israeli Ofer prison, according to the enclave's Health Ministry on Thursday.

“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.

The Palestinian Prisoner Society said Thursday that two detainees from the Gaza Strip have died in Israeli prisons.

The society identified the two victims as Adnan al-Bursh, 50, a doctor, and Ismail Khader, 33.

Al-Bursh was the head of the orthopedic department at Al-Shifa Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip. He was arrested by the Israeli army last December as he was treating patients at Al-Adwa Hospital in northern Gaza.

Hundreds of Palestinians are believed to have been detained by the Israeli army amid a deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip.

Israel has waged an unrelenting offensive on the Palestinian enclave since a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, which killed some 1,200 people.

Nearly 34,600 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and 77,800 injured amid mass destruction and severe shortages of necessities.

More than six months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins, pushing 85% of the enclave’s population into internal displacement amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

*Writing by Mohammad Sio in Istanbul