Jewish Voice for Peace Advisory Council Emergency Statement:
May 19, 2021
Israel Must Immediately End Its Assault on Gaza
The Imperative for a Human Rights-Based Policy Toward Israel/Palestine
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As U.S.-based health professionals and members of the Jewish Voice for Peace Health Advisory Committee (JVP- HAC), we demand an immediate end to Israel’s offensive war against the Palestinian population of Gaza, and an end to U.S. support for Israeli military aggression. We add our voices in solidarity with our besieged colleagues, the health workers in Gaza and in all of Palestine; with the anguished cries of those who have lost loved ones and suffered terrible injuries and trauma throughout Palestine, and their families in the global Palestinian diaspora; and with the outraged members of Congress who have taken a moral stand to end our government’s complicity in the willful killing of Palestinians.
As Israel reiterates its intention to continue the bombing siege, multiple sources report a death toll of over 200 Palestinian civilians, including 60 children; over 1200 injuries to Palestinians in the last few days, with nearly 500 (primarily women and children) severely wounded; and more than 30,000 made homeless. In a demonstration of the disproportionality of force, the death toll for Israelis stands at 11. An Israeli military operation to clear a network of tunnels in Gaza utilized 160 warplanes to drop 80 tons of explosives over a period of 40 minutes.
Gaza’s health facilities, already near collapse under the Israeli blockade, immense destruction from three wars in recent years, and the COVID-19 pandemic, are now overflowing with bombing victims. Among those killed in Gaza are a number of doctors and health workers, including Dr. Moeen Al-Aloul, a neurologist with the Ministry of Health who died with his wife and five children. Dr. Ayman Abu al-Auf, an internist who directed Shifa hospital’s coronavirus response, was also killed at home with seven family members in the same incident. Tank and bomb attacks on May 16 not only destroyed many homes and their inhabitants on al-Wihda Street near Shifa hospital, but also blocked access to emergency services and obliterated two private clinics.
In past wars as well as in the past few days, the Israeli military has not spared attacks on health facilities, emergency health workers, and ambulances. On May 17, the Israeli military bombed Gaza’s sole COVID-19 testing laboratory and the Rimal Clinic. The Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) burn and trauma clinic in Gaza City was also bombed and forced to close. Dr. Mohammed Abu Mughaiseeb, MSF deputy medical coordinator in Gaza described his reaction to the devastated clinic site, “The situation has already been horrible this week, with the number of civilian casualties rising daily, but when I saw the damage to the area and the MSF clinic the morning after the attack, I was speechless.”
In addition to the murderous attacks on Palestinian civilians, Israel has also deployed other means that threaten health and life. While continuing to deny coronavirus vaccines to Palestine (and now delaying indefinitely shipments negotiated by Gaza), the Israeli occupying power has increased risks for COVID and other diseases by further cutting off supplies of food, water, electricity, hygiene, and communication. Additionally, many thousands of displaced families with nowhere else to go are sheltering in very close environments at United Nations schools.
As Palestinians have risen in protest beyond East Jerusalem and Gaza, Israeli attacks have also spread. Witnesses describe Israeli army forces spurring on local violence against Palestinians, and Israeli troops shot and killed at least 11 demonstrators in West Bank towns on May 14.
Bernie Sanders wrote in The New York Times that “The U.S. Must Stop Being an Apologist for the Netanyahu Government.” Widespread support for this position was expressed in the streets all over the U.S. on May 16, yet we learned the next day that President Biden approved the sale to Israel of $735 million worth of precision-guided weapons. While the U.S. continues to provide $3.8 billion in annual military aid to Israel without conditions, Biden has now blocked a UN Security Council demand for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas for the third time in a week.
As U.S. citizens, as Jews, and as health care workers, we recognize it as our duty to oppose Israel’s violations of Palestinian health and human rights, and we support the right of Palestinians to live with dignity and full equality in their homeland. We believe that Israel is perpetrating war crimes, and we are outraged that the mainstream media persists in promoting the false narrative of equivalence between the Israeli military and Palestinian resistance forces, and routinely excludes Palestinian voices and perspectives from its reporting.
Dr. Yasser Abu Jamei, a psychiatrist and Director of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program, declared:
“This needs the right intervention. It is not clinical, but moral and political intervention. An intervention from the outside world. An intervention that ends the root of the problem. One that ends the occupation, and gives us our human right to a normal family life rooted in the feeling of safety no child or family in Gaza knows.”
We join the moral voice of others throughout the world in demanding an immediate ceasefire and an international investigation of Israeli war crimes. We demand an end to the prolonged siege on Gaza that denies entry of essential life saving medications and medical technology (among other necessities). The siege has undermined the ability of the people of Gaza to build their economy and any sense of self-sufficiency. The highly educated population of Gaza face poverty, food scarcity, and an environment that is almost uninhabitable. This is unnecessary and is the result of the many years of injustice dealt out by Israel.
We commit to continuing our work in opposition to U.S. support for Israel’s occupation of Palestine and repeated acts including wars of aggression against the Palestinian people as they persevere in their struggle for freedom. U.S. policy toward Israel and Palestine must follow international law and human rights accords.
Sincerely,
Jewish Voice for Peace Health Advisory Council Steering Committee
Alan Meyers, MD, MPH
Alice Rothchild, MD
Amy Alpert, CCC-SLP
Maxine Fookson, RN, MN
Peter Sporn, MD
Rachel Rubin, MD, MPH
S. Komarovsky, MPH
Sima Kahn, MD
Trude Bennett, MSW, DrPH
Website: https://www.jvphealth.org/
