'Sickening': Reactions to Gaza doctor's rape and murder in Israeli prison

Condemnations and reactions poured in from around the world over the "likely rape" and murder of a renowned Palestinian doctor from Gaza in an Israeli prison after a report revealed chilling new details of his last moments.

Adnan al Bursh, an orthopaedic surgeon who had continued to treat the wounded even when Israeli bombs fell all around him, was detained on December 19, 2023, and taken to the notorious Sde Teiman detention facility.

Four months later, he was transferred to Ofer Prison in the occupied West Bank, unable to walk and eventually died, a Sky News investigation has revealed.

According to testimony collected by the Israeli human rights organisation HaMoked, Bursh arrived in Ofer Prison in a severely battered condition, naked from the waist down, and unable to stand.

UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese called out "the racism of Western media" who are not covering the story of "a stellar surgeon. The embodiment of Palestinian ethics".

"And Western politicians who are not denouncing this, together with the thousand other testimonies and allegations of rape and other forms of mistreatment and torture that Palestinians have suffered in Israeli jails, is absolutely sickening," she said on X.

The abuse and torture taking place at Sde Teiman came to light earlier this year when reports of mass rapes of prisoners surfaced.

Rather than holding the perpetrators accountable, several Israeli lawmakers broke into the prison to protect the soldiers accused of raping Palestinian detainees.

One of the alleged rapists even appeared on a well-known Israeli TV channel, defending rape as a method of exerting pressure on those whom the Israeli state considers its enemies.

"Tell me how this isn't genocide?" an American politician Sam Parker said on X.

Bursh was frequently photographed in bloodstained surgical gowns as he treated numerous victims of Israel's devastating bombings at Al Awda hospital in northern Gaza. One particularly striking image of him taking a brief break on a hospital veranda during the war went viral on social media.

"Palestinian doctors in Gaza, like Doctor Adnan Al Bursh, are heroes and will forever be remembered as such," said Yara Hawari, a Palestine Policy Fellow of Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network.

"On the contrary, the Israeli regime will be forever remembered as being a murderous one that slaughtered Palestinians in homes, hospitals, schools and tents."