Healthcare workers who volunteered in Gaza demand immediate action from UK government

Labour Hub Editors

OCTOBER 6.2024

Thirty UK-based doctors, nurses, and medical professionals have written a powerful open letter to Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy. In the letter, they call for an immediate and total ban on arms sales to Israel and a range of urgent medical and humanitarian interventions.

The medics worked with various non-governmental organisations and the World Health Organization in hospitals throughout Gaza. In addition to their medical and surgical expertise, many hold current roles within the NHS, as well as having worked in humanitarian crises and conflict zones across the world.

They write: “We have seen the deliberate targeting of civilians on a mass scale, and a total lack of resources, due to the destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system and deliberate restriction of aid. The deleterious effects of Israeli occupation on the Palestinian healthcare system are something many of us have seen before – but never to this extent.”

With international journalists being targeted and denied access to Gaza, the health workers are uniquely positioned to comment on what they have witnessed – “the massive human toll from Israel’s attack on Gaza, on Palestinian men, women and children, as well as the long term and systematic destruction of the healthcare system, which will impact the sick as well as the wounded for years to come.”

The authors write: “We demand that the UK government acts immediately to bring an end to the continued Israeli military escalation of catastrophe in Gaza. The United Kingdom must ensure that its policies are ones that result in a ceasefire by withholding military support to Israel and ending arms trade with Israel. We believe our government is obligated to do this, both under British law and International Humanitarian Law (IHL), and that it is the morally as well as legally right thing to do.”

From their own experiences, they record that “Virtually every child under the age of five whom we encountered, both inside and outside of the hospital, had both a cough and watery diarrhoea. Jaundice and hepatitis A infection were widespread in the hospitals in which we worked, while the surgical complication rate was near 100%. Surgical incisions were almost certain to become infected, due to the hospitals’ impossible operating conditions – including a lack of supplies, water, and medications including antibiotics – overcrowding, and due to patients’ malnutrition. We were forced to use household supplies including vinegar for antiseptic purposes, or went without. Due to the lack of painkillers, antibiotics, and hospital beds, patients exhibited a high rate of pressure necrosis.

“Pregnant women gave birth in unsanitary and overcrowded conditions, as there is simply nowhere left which is not unsanitary and overcrowded. These women face serious risk of complications, ill health, and death. Those of us who worked with pregnant women regularly saw still-births and maternal deaths that would be easily preventable in any functioning healthcare system. The rate of infection in C-section incisions was astonishing, and these were often delivered to women going without anaesthesia or painkillers. Their infants were born underweight, while mothers are likely to be unable to breastfeed due to malnutrition. Potable water is unavailable across Gaza. Very few babies born under these conditions are likely to survive, and those who do will have their health permanently impaired.

“We urge you to realise that epidemics are raging in Gaza. In addition to that, Israel has not stopped bombarding civilians in their tents or displacing the malnourished and sick population of Gaza, approximately half of whom are children, to areas with no running water or even toilets available. This is a horrifying reality. It is virtually guaranteed to result in widespread death from viral and bacterial diarrheal diseases and pneumonias, particularly in children under the age of five. According to the World Health Organization, since 19th July 2024, poliovirus has now been discovered in wastewater samples in Gaza.”

On the plight of Gaza’s children, they say: “All of us treated children who seemed to have been deliberately targeted by military violence. Bullet wounds to children’s heads and torsos and amputations of limbs and eyes of children were commonplace.”

They add that “many of the injuries we treated may have resulted from the use of weapons systems and components supplied from Britain. This includes the victims of the daily airstrikes conducted using F-16 and F-35 aircraft part-produced in the UK. Being some of the few UK citizens and residents able to travel to Gaza since October, we write to you in certainty that if you had seen, heard, and experienced the things we have, there would be no question of placing an arms embargo on Israel.”

They point out that “many of our Palestinian healthcare colleagues were kidnapped by Israeli forces. During their detention, which lasted for weeks or months, almost all reported experience of physical and psychological abuse, mistreatment including torture and sexual abuse.”

They conclude: “Any solution to this problem requires the withholding of military, economic, and diplomatic support from Israel, and participating in a full arms embargo of Israel, until a permanent ceasefire is established, and until good faith negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians lead to a permanent resolution of the conflict.

“All land crossings between Gaza and Israel as well as the Rafah Crossing must be opened to unfettered aid delivery by recognised international humanitarian organisations, with a redeveloped ‘security screening’ regime conducted by an international co-ordination regime independent of Israeli military forces…

“Full and unrestricted access to the Gaza Strip must be created for medical and surgical professionals, including those of Palestinian descent who are currently barred by Israel from entering or working in Gaza…

“The delivery of community care including immunisation programmes must be ensured, to help prevent communicable diseases including measles, polio, COVID-19, and skin disease. The United Kingdom must support the construction of field hospitals to service Gaza’s population in place of now destroyed health facilities, and must look to funding and supporting the reconstruction of Gaza’s hospitals in the future…

“Respect and support for international and domestic accountability mechanisms from the UK government must be ensured. This includes supporting the International Criminal Court Prosecutor’s investigation in the Palestine Situation, South Africa’s case before the International Court of Justice, domestic universal jurisdiction prosecutions, and any other means of judicial, political and diplomatic accountability.”

In the US, 99 health workers – nearly every American healthcare worker who has served in Gaza since October 7th – have also written to their government setting out their own testimony and making similar calls for action. A similar move has also been made in Canada.

The letter has been supported by the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians, an independent organization of lawyers, politicians, and academics who support the rights of Palestinians and aim to protect their rights through the law.

Image: Wounded Palestinians wait for treatment at the overcrowded emergency ward of Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City following an Israeli airstrike on October 11, 2023,. Source: Correspondence with Wiki Palestine (Q117834684) Author: WAFA (Q2915969) in contract with a local company (APAimages), licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.