Hamas calls for international investigation into Israeli execution of Palestinian doctor

The Islamic resistance movement Hamas has called for an international investigation into the execution of a Palestinian doctor who was abducted in the Gaza Strip and lost his life during what the Israeli media call “interrogation” in one of the regime’s prisons.

According to the Israeli media, Iyad Rantisi, the 53-year-old physician was abducted in mid-November while trying to get away from bombings in northern Gaza.

Rantisi was declared dead six days later at Shikma Prison, which is home to a Shin Bet interrogation center.

The news of his death however was censored when an Israeli court issued a six-month gag order prohibiting the publication of all the details of the case.

Rantisi is not the first to fall victim to this type of Israeli crime. Another Palestinian physician from Gaza, Adnan al-Bursh was also killed in Israeli custody after facing torture and abuse for 4 months.

The Government Media Office in Gaza said in a statement on Tuesday that the Israeli occupation's execution of Dr. Rantisi “inside prisons is a horrific crime requiring international investigation.”

“We demand the release of 310 medical personnel who are being tortured,” it added.  

The statement said Dr. Rantisi was head of the obstetrics department at Kamal Adwan Hospital who was killed “inside the occupation's prisons under torture. He was arrested months ago, taken to the occupation's detention cells, and then executed.”

“Initial reports about the martyr Dr. Iyad Al-Rantisi indicate that the occupation executed him through a force of ‘Israeli’ jailers who subjected him to electric shocks and various forms of torture, leading to his martyrdom months ago. However, the occupation concealed his martyrdom and did not announce their brutal crime,” the statement noted.

“This crime reminds us of a previous crime where the occupation executed Dr. Al-Barsh inside prisons after subjecting him to systematic torture. It also reminds us of the occupation's execution of 499 medical personnel and the severe torture faced by 310 medical staff currently detained in the occupation's prisons, all in the context of their eradication and execution amid unprecedented and horrible international silence,” it added.

The Gaza government statement strongly condemned and denounced “the brutal acts of arrest, killing, and execution carried out by the Israeli occupation army against medical personnel.”

“We call on the international community, human rights organizations and international bodies to condemn this heinous and brutal crime” the statement added.

The Gaza government said in the statement it holds the “Israeli occupation and the American administration fully responsible for the lives and safety of medical teams, whether those still detained by the occupation army or those working in hospitals and various medical centers.”

“We demand that the international community provide legal protection for Palestinian medical personnel and allow them to work freely during times of war without fear of arrest or threats of killing and assassination, in accordance with the Fourth Geneva Convention and international and humanitarian conventions and norms,” it noted.

“We call on the international community and human rights and international organizations to open an international investigation into the crimes of arrest and execution of Palestinian medical personnel by the Israeli occupation, especially the cases of the execution of doctors Iyad Al-Rantisi and Adnan Al-Barsh, and to refer the criminals involved in these crimes to international courts for trial,” it said.

“We urge the international community and humanitarian and human rights institutions to press the Israeli occupation to immediately and urgently release all doctors, nurses, and workers in the Palestinian health sector without delay," the statement said.

Report: Gaza doctor tortured to death during Israeli interrogation

Iyad Rantisi, 53, was abducted on November 11 at an Israeli checkpoint.

Adnan Al-Barsh led the orthopedic surgery department at Gaza City's Shifa Hospital and was abducted in Khan Yunis in December. The father of six died four months later, on April 19, at Ofer Prison in the occupied West Bank.

Israeli authorities have not explained the circumstances of Bursh's death.

More than three dozen Palestinians from Gaza held at Israel's Sde Teiman detention facility have also died, presumably under torture.

These figures do not include Palestinians from Gaza who died in prisons operated by the Israel Prison Service.

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