Statement from Doctors on the Situation in Gaza
American doctors attending the ongoing Democratic National Convention in Chicago laid bare the devastation caused by Israel’s attacks on Gaza at a press conference. The doctors stressed that the US must immediately impose an embargo on Israel or it will be “complicit” in Israel’s continued actions.
From doctors working in Gaza Tammy Abughanim, stated that the results of Israel’s attacks that have lasted more than 10 months have made life almost impossible for civilians in the region. Abughanim said, “People cannot stand this situation for another day,” and drew attention to the seriousness of what is happening. “While bombs are falling, Israeli snipers are targeting children and civilians, helicopters are landing on groups of civilians; it has become impossible to do our job under these conditions. Because all of this is happening with the direct support of the United States,” he said
Abughanim’s colleagues wore keffiyehs at the press conference, saying it was almost impossible to convey the “horrific dimensions” of the human tragedy in Gaza. Dr. Feroze Sidhwa“I was in Gaza from March 25 to April 8 and witnessed the genocide there. I saw children’s heads being blown apart every day by paid bullets. I watched the entire city of Khan Younis go into horrific and systematic destruction; I can say that if “There is a single room in this city with four walls left, I don’t know where it is,” he said.
Jewish-American doctor serving in Gaza at press conference Mark PerlmutterThe letter, written by , was also read. “I have never seen a small child shot in the head and then in the chest before. I could never have imagined that I would see two such cases in less than two weeks. I have never seen more than a dozen small children screaming in pain and terror, crammed into a trauma center smaller than my living room, the smell of their burning flesh filling the area so intensely that my eyes began to burn,” the letter read.
The letter also said it was difficult to imagine what a hospital would look like if it were turned into a displaced persons camp. It noted that the US government had continued to fund “this horrific massacre not for a week, not for a month, but for almost a year.” The letter concluded by calling on the Palestinians to “stop arming Israel, for the good of the United States, Israel, Judaism, and even international law and all of humanity.”
