By almost every measure, Gaza represents one of the greatest man-made public health catastrophes of our age. As public health professionals, it is our duty to speak out about the genocide in Gaza. Our public health colleagues should do the same.
Following the UN Security Council ceasefire resolution, Israel continued its attacks on Gaza hospitals, killing 76 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, in southern Lebanon, Israel killed 7 Lebanese people during cross-border fighting.
I am in my final year in medical school and have seen hundreds of critical cases as a volunteer doctor during Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza. The traumas I have seen in my patients are no different from those I have experienced myself.
Captain Bar Zonshein recounts firing tank shells on vehicles carrying Israeli civilians on October 7. “I decide that this is the right decision, that it’s better to stop the abduction and that they not be taken,” he told Israeli media outlets.
The UN Security Council finally passed a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, with the U.S. abstaining. But Netanyahu vowed to continue the war, with Israeli forces currently attacking two major hospitals in Gaza.
Benjamin Netanyahu canceled a planned delegation to Washington following a U.S. abstention at the U.N. Security Council, saying the Gaza ceasefire resolution which passed marked a “retreat” that “gives Hamas hope.”
9-year-old Yazan Kafarneh died of a congenital illness turned deadly by severe malnutrition under Israel’s genocidal siege. “He didn’t need a miracle to save him,” cries his mother. “All he needed was the food we’ve always been able to provide him.”
Eyewitness accounts emerge from Gaza’s hospitals of rape, torture, mass executions, and soldiers crushing Palestinian bodies with tanks. Hamas says Israel’s systematic attack on hospitals is central to its “war of extermination.”
Jeffrey Goldberg used to brag of his Israeli military service but this week was forced to withdraw from a speaking event after students asked how a former IDF prison guard could speak on democracy. Zionism has lost its hallowed perch in U.S. society.