Doctors worked in Gaza speaks out against U.S. arming of Israel
Chicago (Quds News Network)- A group of American doctors who worked in Gaza have called the Biden administration to impose an arms embargo on Israel, noting that doctors were unable to provide care as the bombardment of Gaza continues with “direct support from the US.”
The doctors held a press conference in Chicago on Tuesday to describe the suffering they saw among Palestinians injured and killed in Israel’s genocide war on the enclave.
The press conference, taking place during the Democratic National Convention, was organized by the Uncommitted National Movement, which is pressuring Democrats for an end to blanket U.S. support for Israel.
Among those who spoke was Dr. Ahmed Yousaf, who returned from Gaza just weeks earlier. He primarily worked in the ICU and in the emergency room in Al-Aqsa Hospital in the central Gaza Strip.
“I thought — I’m not a politician, and I’m not a military strategist, but the moment we drove through Rafah with a U.N. convoy towards the middle area where we were going to be stationed, it became clear to me that what I was seeing was unfathomable. And at the same time, I had a small hope that when the doors are opened and the ceasefire is had, that when you all are allowed back in there, that it doesn’t require a military strategist to realize what they’re doing,” he said.
“When we got to the hospital, everything I saw on TikTok and Instagram and all the television, all the stuff that we had in alternative media … it was 100 times worse than I could have ever imagined.”
“They are making Gaza unlivable. They’ve destroyed the water infrastructure, and so we were seeing kids die of diarrheal illness. They prevented all medical supplies in.”
“..every single person in Gaza deserves the dignity and support that humanity as a whole is burdened with and has an obligation to provide,” Yousaf added.
American doctors who volunteered in Gaza described the disastrous conditions and suffering among Palestinians affected by Israel’s ongoing genocide, now in its eleventh month and having killed over 40,000, more than half of whom are women and children. pic.twitter.com/LKxK5SmLP9
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) August 22, 2024
Yousaf called for a “ceasefire and a stopping of the bleeding by stopping the sales of bombs. There’s no reason that the bomb that dropped on that young woman’s head had to be made in America.”
Dr. Tammy Abughanim, a paediatric intensive-care surgeon said, “When we press the Biden administration for an arms embargo as physicians, what we are saying is we cannot do our jobs as bombs are falling.”
“We cannot do our jobs, because Israel has made our jobs impossible, and Israel has made our jobs impossible with the direct support of the United States.”
“We all know the obvious step is to stop supplying Israel with the arms that it is using, the weaponry that it is using to target and kill civilians.”
“I saw children’s heads smashed to pieces by the bullets that we paid for, not once, not twice, but quite literally, every single day,” said trauma surgeon Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, adding that an arms embargo “is not a radical idea”.
Sidhwa also read aloud a letter written by Mark Perlmutter, a Jewish-American doctor who accompanied him on his trip to Gaza but could not attend the press conference.
Noting having seen children being shot, Perlmutter “could never have imagined that my [his] government would be supplying the weapons and funding that keeps this horrifying slaughter going, not for one week, not for one month, but for nearly an entire year now”.
“For the good of the Palestinians, for the good of the United States, for the good of Israel, for the good of Judaism, and indeed, for the good of international law and all of humanity, please stop arming Israel,” Perlmutter added.
Emergency physician Dr. Thaer Ahmad also participated in the confernece, recounting his experience. Ahmad also walked out of a meeting with Biden and Harris in April “out of respect for my [his] community” as he was the only Palestinian-American present.
The US has been Israel’s strongest supplier of arms, providing $3.8 billion in military aid per year, with the Biden administration recently approving $26 billion in addition to wartime assistance in April.
President Biden claimed the weapons being sent are “defensive”, despite rights groups pointing out airstrikes where there was credible evidence of Israel violating international law.
