‘US has Power to End Genocide’ – Coalition of Doctors Demand Arms Embargo on Israel

January 9, 2025 News
A global coalition of healthcare workers, Doctors Against Genocide (DAG), has demanded action to end the genocide in Gaza. (Photo: via DAG X)

By Palestine Chronicle Staff  

Healthcare professionals demand action to end the genocide in Gaza, including an arms embargo on Israel and accountability for war crimes.

A global coalition of healthcare workers, Doctors Against Genocide (DAG), has demanded action to end the genocide in Gaza, including an immediate arms embargo on Israel.

“We will not remain silent. We demand action to end the genocide, including an immediate arms embargo on Israel, as the United States supplies 70% of Israel’s weapons,” the coalition of US, Canadian and international healthcare workers said in a statement.

“We call upon our colleagues, institutions, and national associations to join us in demanding an end to attacks on healthcare, the release of Dr. Abu Safiya and the 450 healthcare workers illegally held in Israeli detention and torture centers,” the statement added.

As well as “an immediate end to the genocide, accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity, and unhindered, unconditional humanitarian aid and reconstruction in Gaza,” it added.

‘Sick from Genocide’

On January 6, the coalition’s members collectively took a day of #SickFromGenocide mental health leave to protest “the ongoing genocide and human rights violations in Gaza.”

The day was marked by members “collectively” stepping away “from our work, taking a mental health sick leave as we confront the unbearable grief, moral injury, and trauma of witnessing the systematic destruction of lives, communities, and healthcare systems.”

“For 15 months, we have watched in horror as children and families have been obliterated by unrelenting attacks. Hospitals, the bedrock of life-saving care, have been turned into death traps,” the statement read.

It said that the recent bombing and burning of Kamal Adwan Hospital and “the arrest of our colleague the pediatrician Dr. Hussam Abu-Safiya, exemplify the deliberate targeting of healthcare workers and facilities—tactics designed to accelerate the annihilation and forced displacement of the Palestinian people in Gaza.”

“We are sick. Sick from the genocide. Sick from the silence and complicity of our medical institutions,” the statement stressed.

‘Silence’ from Institutions

DAG noted that national medical associations and academic journals “swiftly and appropriately condemned Russia’s attacks on healthcare and civilian targets in Ukraine and other humanitarian crises.”

Universities such as MIT “ended research relationships with Russia overnight,” it continued.

“These same institutions like AMA, AAP, APA and many others have remained overwhelmingly silent as Israel has systematically decimated the health system of Gaza and killed more children in the past year than in any conflict this century,” the statement noted.

It said that despite the fact that “61% of US voters support an arms embargo against Israel, our elected leaders continue to send our tax dollars to support horrific atrocities.”

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Doctors without Borders and an independent UN commission “have all concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza,” the statement said.

Congressional Action Urged

On Wednesday, a DAG delegation visited members of the House of Representatives and Senate to advocate for urgent congressional action on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

“We’re here to bring to the attention of the Senate and House of Representatives about the genocide that is occurring in Gaza, especially north Gaza, and in particular the targeting by the Israeli military of all the hospitals in Gaza, particularly Kamal Adwan Hospital, which has been destroyed, and most of the hospitals have been destroyed,” Omar Scott Antar told the Anadolu news agency.

Antar, who is also a co-founder of the Connecticut Palestine Alliance, said the destruction of the health care system in Gaza is “just one part of the systematic ethnic cleansing and genocide” of the Palestinians of Gaza, reported Anadolu.

‘US Has the Power’

He said: “It must be halted now, and the United States has the power to halt it with one phone call from either President (Joe) Biden or future President (Donald) Trump, to halt all military aid to Israel,” adding that the responsibility is on the US.

Asked whether he is hopeful that there will be a change in the Gaza policy with the new Trump administration, Antar said it depends on the “whims” of President-elect Trump, the report stated.

“If President Trump finds that the war affects him personally, affects his political standing, he will stop the war. But if the war continues without affecting his political standing, it will become worse,” he added.

‘Unjustified’ War

Desmond Kaplan, a psychiatrist working in Baltimore, told Anadolu he was “deeply distressed” over what has been going on in Gaza, calling it “unacceptable.”

“I’m very concerned that, as an American, that America is supplying arms for a war that is unjustified, that the war in Gaza needs to end, and we need to stop the killing of children and the elderly and the destruction of schools and hospitals and places of worship. We need to negotiate with the Palestinians,” Kaplan told Anadolu.

He also called for a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine to end the conflict.

Steve Berman, a member of Doctors Against Genocide, said he was “very concerned” about the crisis in Gaza, the forced detentions of doctors and the deliberate murder of innocent civilians.

“This should never have happened, and if you can, please stop. Not if you can. I know you can. But please stop the support of the Israeli government because they’re killing innocent people,” Berman, a retired cardiologist, told Anadolu.

Ongoing Genocide

The ongoing Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, which began on October 7, 2023, has led to a humanitarian crisis of unprecedented scale. As the death toll among besieged and starved Palestinian civilians continues to rise daily, Israel is currently facing charges of genocide against Palestinians before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, at least 46,006 Palestinians have been killed, and 109,378 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7, 2023. The toll is expected to rise further, with at least 11,000 people still unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes across Gaza.

The war, which Palestinians call “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood,” began after a military operation carried out by Hamas on Israeli territory. Israel reports that 1,139 of its soldiers and civilians were killed during the initial attack on October 7. However, Israeli media have raised concerns that a significant number of Israeli casualties were caused by ‘friendly fire’ during the assault.

Humanitarian Disaster

Human rights organizations, both Palestinian and international, have reported that the overwhelming majority of the casualties in Gaza are women and children. The ongoing violence has also exacerbated an acute famine, with thousands of children among the dead, highlighting the severity of the humanitarian disaster.

The war has displaced nearly two million people from their homes across Gaza, with the majority of the displaced forced into the already overcrowded southern region of the Strip. The population in Gaza remains trapped in the ongoing conflict, with little access to basic necessities such as food, water, and medical care.

(PC, Anadolu)

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