Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh was the head of the orthopedic wing at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. During the war, he had to wander from one hospital to the next, as they were all destroyed by the IDF. He has not been back to his home in Jabalya since the start of the war, and last December all trace of him disappeared. Recently, it transpired that he had died in an Israeli jail, apparently due to the torture of beatings during interrogation.
The last people to see him were other doctors and detainees who have been released. They told Haaretz correspondents Jack Khoury and Bar Peleg that they had barely recognized him. “It was clear he had been through hell, torture, humiliation, and sleep deprivation. He wasn’t the person we knew; he was a shadow of himself.”
On top of the doctor’s death came another heinous act: the response of the authorities. The Shin Bet was silent as usual. Ex-Shin Bet officers are now star commentators on television, asked to show us the way, to give us their opinion, but the Shin Bet never talks about those it has interrogated and tortured.
The IDF shirked responsibility; the doctor was only “processed” at an army detention facility, and was immediately transferred to the Shin Bet interrogation facility in Kishon, and from there to Ofer Prison, which is under the charge of the Israel Prison Service. The IPS response was pure audacity: “The service does not address the circumstances of the deaths of detainees who are not Israeli citizens.”
It’s just so horrible watching it all go down in real time. I remember reading about Sophie Scholl as a hero when I was a teen, there is a great webcomic:
The Line
I don’t think most people have truly studied history. We only see Nazis as “bad guys”, framed in films utilizing an Us vs Them narrative. When you go Us vs Them, you can make enemies of people and justify huge military spending.