(06.11.2023)

Dozens of Israeli physicians signed a letter urging the military to destroy the “hornet nests and the hospitals shielding them” in the Gaza Strip. The letter indicates that its authors consider the civilians in these hospitals to be legitimate targets – as if they can choose to leave; as if there’s a safe way out and another hospital able to take them in.

Following their appeal, we drafted the response letter below, undersigned by physicians and health professionals working in hospitals and in the community: (…)

No person with a conscience can remain indifferent to the massacre of civilians, including men, women, and children, carried out on October 7, 2023, by Hamas militants – the scale of which has yet to be fully revealed. However, our deep outrage must not be transformed into a carte blanche for killing civilians in the Gaza Strip, where residents are also counting the wounded and dead – certainly not when physicians are the ones demanding this. Fortunately, the letter’s signatories represent only a small minority of the health community, while the vast majority remains busy saving lives – no matter whose lives it may be.