“The residents of Gaza, who noticed match to show the hospitals into terrorist nests in an try to reap the benefits of Western morality, are those who introduced their destruction upon themselves – terrorism should be eradicated in every single place and in any approach. Attacking terrorist headquarters positioned inside a hospital is the best, and even the responsibility of the IDF.”
Upon preliminary examination, one may suppose these are sentences written by extremists or fanatics, giving a military permission and encouragement to bomb hospitals. What’s surprising is just not solely the assertion itself, however that it’s signed publicly by dozens of Israeli medical doctors and shared extensively on varied social media platforms.
As an alternative of rapid outrage and condemnation, the assertion resulted in what some referred to as a “legit” public debate throughout the Israeli medical neighborhood, to bomb or to not bomb Palestinian hospitals.
We, six Palestinian physicians working throughout the Israeli healthcare system, are sickened to our core by the statements made by a few of our colleagues, Israeli medical doctors we work with, calling on the Israeli military to bomb hospitals within the Gaza Strip.
Regrettably, we can’t say we have been stunned. As medical doctors skilled and practising on this system, we’re all too conscious of its embedded racism, militarism and hypocrisy coated up by a false picture of a medical sector the place Arabs and Jews work collectively in concord and respect.
The current letter by our Israeli colleagues issued at a time of an unfolding massacres is a telling instance of what the Israeli well being system is basically like. It’s a system the place some medical doctors, shamelessly and publicly, undertake the position of consultants to the military.
They use their place and occupation, to not save lives, to not preach in regards to the devastating results of warfare on civilians on each side and the need of discovering a peaceable political resolution, however really to validate assaults on medical services, realizing full properly that this implies the killing of fellow medical doctors and sufferers.
On the similar time, this well being system has adopted a distinctly McCarthyist witch hunt strategy in the direction of us, Palestinian physicians. Consequently, we can’t interact in any mental or ethical dialog in regards to the warfare. We’re anticipated to sentence Hamas and be a part of the patriotic Israeli army frenzy, whereas watching silently our Jewish colleagues cheering for the killing of harmless Palestinian civilians and endorsing the tightening of the blockade.
We drive to work every single day, listening to the devastating information in regards to the demise toll and destruction within the Gaza Strip and the West Financial institution. Once we arrive, we placed on that masks of “all the pieces is okay” and endure the day by day loyalty check and scrutinising eyes of our colleagues. Throughout espresso breaks, we’re compelled to hear with a straight face to our Israeli colleagues casually dropping phrases like “flattening Gaza” and discussing the deserves of displacing its individuals.
We’re additionally seeing our Palestinian colleagues being interrogated, fired and shamed with out a legitimate cause. We’re very conscious of how the hospitals and clinics we work in have turn out to be disciplining arenas. In a “regular” place, we might be within the streets, demanding an finish to the warfare and massacres and advocating for a peaceable resolution. We might use our occupation and place to denounce the inhumane assaults on healthcare staff, services and civilian infrastructure.
We’re deeply conscious that the scenario is way more advanced than selecting sides and we all know that each life misplaced is a tragedy, whether or not it’s Israeli or Palestinian. However exactly due to this, we additionally know that historical past didn’t start on October 7 and that our individuals have been displaced, killed, injured and humiliated for many years, with the complete endorsement and involvement of our fellow Israeli medical doctors.
We come to work every single day, realizing that our individuals are killed, tortured and maimed by unlawful Israeli settlers and the Israeli military within the occupied West Financial institution land. Nonetheless, we additionally know that we can’t ask our fellow Israeli medical doctors “Do you condemn?”
Now we have been compelled to dwell in a coercive atmosphere the place Palestinian demise is normalised and infrequently celebrated, however Israeli Jewish demise is seen as a tragedy that can’t be accepted and necessitates revenge.
That is the fact, the place Israeli nationwide safety is of excessive worth however Palestinian nationwide safety is a darkish joke. It’s Jewish supremacy in life and demise that’s so normalised, significantly at such tragic instances when it explodes to uncover the true face of our Israeli colleagues and sadly additionally of the Western world and its medical establishments.
The normalisation of Palestinian dehumanisation displays the complicity of all the world within the massacres that are happening within the Gaza Strip.
The medical occupation has an extended and wealthy historical past of opposing warfare and its devastating results on well being. It has stood up towards racism, colonialism and imperial enlargement, which have pushed lethal wars.
We will vividly keep in mind the large organising of medical doctors towards the US wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. We noticed how medical doctors within the US, within the aftermath of 9/11, organised to oppose and foyer towards the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, realizing it will result in extra deaths and never safety.
However we’re additionally conscious that almost all of our fellow Israeli Jewish colleagues are on the alternative facet of this urge to guard civilians, as all the Israeli well being system has been mobilised to affix the warfare effort and assist it.
The Israeli well being system not solely doesn’t oppose Israel’s warfare, occupation and apartheid but in addition prevents Palestinian medical doctors residing in Israel from talking up and organising towards them.
On this tragic and regrettable atmosphere we dwell and work in, we have to disguise our names and write anonymously to state the plain, following our skilled responsibility and oath. Now we have reached such a degree of demoralisation and dehumanisation that we’re compelled to observe massacres, with Palestinian kids burned by Israeli phosphorus bombs and full populations starved of meals and water, with out batting an eye fixed, as if all the pieces is simply “regular”.
Not solely are we barred from volunteering to supply medical help to the harmless Palestinian civilians, however we’re additionally not allowed to talk up towards these state crimes with out risking our jobs and security.
We wish this letter to function an apology to our Palestinian individuals and colleagues within the Gaza Strip, exposing our profound powerlessness and full impotence.
We and the world have failed you.
We will solely hope that in future calmer days, we are able to bear witness and converse and write in regards to the circumstances which have allowed for massacres to unfold and to participate in therapeutic those that survived.
Editor’s observe: Suad, Layla and Samir are pseudonyms. This op-ed has been written by them together with three different Palestinian medical doctors working in Israel. They’re writing anonymously for concern of bodily {and professional} retribution.
The views expressed on this article are the authors’ personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.