Palestinian prisoners’ institutions announced the martyrdom of two Palestinian detainees from Gaza, Mohammed Abdul-Rahman Huwaishel Idriss, 35, and Muath Khaled Mohammed Rayyan, 31, on 1 December 2024. Both Idriss and Rayyan were Palestinians abducted from Gaza by the genocidal invading Zionist occupation forces, backed and funded by the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Canada, and fellow imperialist powers.
The prisoners’ institutions — the Commission on Prisoners’ Affairs, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society, and Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association — said that they were informed of their martyrdom on 29 November 2024, saying that Idriss was martyred in Ofer prison, while the occupation refused to disclose the location of Rayyan’s martyrdom on 2 November 2024. Mohammed Idriss suffered from no health problems before his abduction by occupation forces on 25 August 2024 by the genocidal invading forces, while Muath Rayyan was completely paralyzed yet still abducted by the invading forces on 21 October 2024, and murdered only 10 days later.
The news of the martyrdom of Mohammed Idriss and Muath Rayyan follows a response by the Supreme Court of the occupation, documenting the martyrdom of two more Palestinians abducted from Gaza, the father and son: Munir Abdullah Mahmoud al-Fiqaawi, 42, and Yassin Munir al-Fiqaawi, 18 years old. The martyrdom of the four men brings the known total of martyred prisoners since 7 October 2023 to 47 martyrs; however, this number is known to be incomplete, as at least dozens of Palestinians from Gaza were martyred under severe torture in the occupation prisons and detention camps, and the occupation has refused to release information about their names and the date of their martyrdom.
“The disclosure of even more martyrs among the detainees from Gaza, who have been murdered in the last days and months, means that the occupation is continuing its systematic crimes of torture, in addition to medical abuse, deliberate starvation, rape and sexual assaults and unlimited forms of abuse, including continuous attacks and using every detail in the structure of the detention camps into a tool for torture, theft and deprivation….Thousands of sick and wounded prisoners and detainees, who endured the prison system’s procedures and crimes at the beginning of the war, no longer have the ability to do so today. Their health conditions are also clearly deteriorating, and many healthy prisoners have turned into patients due to the continued spread of epidemics and diseases and the crime of starvation. This is what we see daily, whether through visits or through the courts,” said the Palestinian prisoners’ institutions announcing the men’s martyrdom. They further noted the attempts to avoid accountability, as the occupation forces were asked on multiple occasions about the martyred father and son, Munir and Yassin al-Fiqaawi, and claimed to have no knowledge until the case reached the occupation’s Supreme Court.
The assault on Palestinian prisoners is part and parcel of the ongoing Zionist genocide being carried out in occupied Palestine, particularly in the Gaza Strip, with the full support, participation, and, indeed, direction of the imperialist powers. There are currently over 10,200 Palestinian prisoners held in Zionist prisons, although this number does not include all of the prisoners from Gaza, hundreds or thousands of whom have been subjected to enforced disappearance and whose names, locations, medical status and very life or death continue to be concealed by the occupation. There are at least 3443 Palestinians held under administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial (first brought to Palestine by the British colonial mandate and since enthusiastically adopted by the Zionist regime), 90 women prisoners and 270 imprisoned children, among this number.
All Palestinian prisoners are being subjected to medical abuse, extreme violence and deliberate starvation. The occupation regime recognizes that the Palestinian prisoners’ movement is a keystone of the Palestinian liberation struggle and is seeking to destroy it by all means, including the assassination of the prisoners. Palestinian prisoners from Gaza in particular have been subjected to systematic severe torture, gang rape, and extreme abuse, particularly in the notorious prison camps run specifically to torture Palestinians from Gaza without any kind of external observation.
Indeed, after there was a gesture toward a Zionist investigation after a Palestinian prisoner was martyred after he was raped by a gang of occupation soldiers, the resulting “right to rape” riots across occupied Palestine underlined the genocidal nature of the Zionist regime. Zionist soldiers have been essentially given free rein to engage in a widespread, systemic campaign of torture, rape and abuse against the Palestinian people, part of the same genocidal campaign that has taken well over 50,000 Palestinian lives in Gaza. The Zionist regime is not only subjecting Palestinian prisoners — in Sde Teiman and in the “regular” Israel Prison Service prisons, directed by Itamar Ben-Gvir, one of the “right to rape” leaders — to severe torture and abuse, it is imprisoning the bodies of the martyrs after they are killed.
The case of Dr. Adnan al-Bursh, the chair of orthopedic surgery at al-Shifa Hospital, is an emblematic example of the type of murderous abuse to which Palestinian prisoners are subjected.
Dr. Adnan al-Bursh, 50, was kidnapped from Al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia in December 2023 and he was not seen again until 19 April 2024, when, after being held under severe and extreme torture for four months, he was dumped in the yard of Ofer prison, naked below the waist. Fellow prisoners picked him up and carried him into their rooms as he was unable to stand up. Moments later, the prisoners screamed, announcing his death. He was one of the most prominent surgeons in Gaza, saving the lives of multiple Palestinians throughout the genocide and throughout his life. The beloved husband of Yasmine al-Bursh and the father of six children, he was dedicated to his work. After the destruction and targeting of Al-Shifa hospital, he moved first to the Indonesian Hospital and then to Al-Awda Hospital. His martyrdom was not announced until 2 May 2024. Like his fellow martyred prisoners and detainees, the occupation continues to imprison his body after death.
Professor @maynard_nick holding a photo of his colleague Dr Adnan Al Bursh who was murdered in Ofer Prison after enduring brutal, daily torture. @TadhgHickey holding the picture of also murdered OBGYN Dr Iyad Al Rantisi, today at Corks demonstration for Palestine. pic.twitter.com/5NbDE0dZP6
— irish_hcworkers_for_palestine (@IrishhcwforPal) November 30, 2024
Of course, the murder of Adnan al-Bursh is part and parcel of the ongoing attack on Palestinian health care institutions, hospitals and health workers, in which doctors, nurses and other medical professionals have been deliberately targeted for assassination and imprisonment — and medical facilities targeted for destruction — as part of the genocide, in order to deny the Palestinian people medical support.
The news of the martyrdom of Mohammed Idriss, Muath Rayyan, Munir al-Fiqaawi and Yassin al-Fiqaawi comes alongside the martyrdom of over 100 Palestinians today in ongoing massacres in Beit Lahiya and throughout northern Gaza, as the occupation continues its genocidal assault with US- and German-made bombs and weapons against the Palestinian people as a whole.
The Resistance, throughout the region, is fighting to defend humanity and to bring these crimes to an end, once and for all. There can be no accomodation with the Zionist regime, a criminal regime built upon genocide, dispossession and destruction, but only its defeat and dismantlement. We further emphasize that these crimes are not those of the Zionist regime alone, but that the blood of every martyr is on the hands of the United States, Germany, Canada, Britain, France and their fellow imperialist partners in the colonization and genocide of Palestine.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network salutes and mourns the martyrs and pledges to redouble our efforts to organize to end the genocide, to stand with the resistance, to liberate the prisoners and for a free Palestine, from the river to the sea.
