The health system in the Gaza Strip has become a primary and direct target of the Israeli occupation, as it targets hospitals and health centers as well as medical staff, whether by assassination or by arrest and imprisonment.
The head of the orthopedic department at Al-Shifa Hospital, Dr. Adnan Al-Barsh, is one of the faces targeted by the occupation. He was martyred under torture by the occupation forces in Ofer prison on April 19.
The doctor was arrested with a group of his colleagues at Al Awda Hospital last December, and for months he was transferred from one detention center to another until he was martyred, and his body is still being held by the occupation authorities.
Al-Barsh’s wife asked the occupation authorities to hand over his body to her, but the latter refused, so the wife finally agreed to perform an autopsy only.
Tel Aviv Tribune showed the testimony of Dr. Jamal Naeem, who in turn was targeted by the occupation forces. He said that their house was bombed by Israel on January 6 while they were sleeping, which led to the death of his mother, 3 of his daughters, and 3 of his grandchildren.
He said that the occupation, since the beginning of the war, had been targeting legal figures, including university presidents and academic and medical staff, and that many of their fellow doctors were arrested and some of them were assassinated while they were sleeping with their families.
Testimony of Dr. Naeem
Dr. Naeem – who hails from Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip – described the current situation in the health sector as catastrophic, noting that many health institutions have been destroyed and need years to be rebuilt, but he said that the lives lost are a small price in exchange for liberating Palestine from the occupation.
Dr. Al-Barash, the most famous orthopedic surgeon in the Gaza Strip, and Dr. Naeem were not the only victims of the Israeli war. According to statistics from the Ministry of Health in Gaza, more than 493 medical staff and medical specialists were martyred, and 600 were injured as a result of the Israeli bombing, while the occupation arrested 310 individuals. The fate of most of the medical teams was unknown.
Most hospitals also stopped serving – according to the same statistics – as a result of the bombing, siege, and lack of fuel and medical supplies, while the number of institutions targeted, wholly or partially, reached 155 institutions since the start of the Israeli war on the Palestinian Strip, in addition to the occupation’s destruction of 130 ambulances.