Doctors Against Genocide December 27, 2024

Sick From Genocide

We are broken. After 15 months of seeing children and their families burnt and obliterated by unrelenting Israeli attacks, we cannot carry on with our normal patterns of work and life. The international system has failed us, but with the promise of preventing such atrocities, we have to speak out. Health care workers, we are sick—sick from genocide, sick from complicity, and sick from silence. We can’t keep reporting to work as if everything is okay. On January 6, we are taking a mental health sick leave.

The intentional order to deliberately enabling atrocities. Our colleagues are being killed, burned, detained, raped, and tortured while we are expected to carry on as usual. This is not normal. Hospitals, which are supposed to be safe havens under international humanitarian law, are systematically targeted, violating basic international law and human rights.

Destroying healthcare systems is genocidal tactic to accelerate death. Without functioning hospitals, lives cannot be saved. The last attack and burning of Kamal Adwan Hospital and the arrest of our friend and colleague Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh, where we have been in contact for years, have left us in a state of grief and devastation.

This Dr. Husam Abu-Safia's shattered life—torn from his place of healing into a suffering and accelerating death.

Genocide scholars, human rights organizations, even the United Nations have said it. The reports are out there, filled with horrifying details of civilians being bombed, doctors hunted down, and hospitals being reduced to rubble. The legal definition of genocide isn’t up for debate here—it’s being met in full view of the world. And yet, those in power have done almost nothing to stop it.

We are sick. Sick from genocide. Sick from paying for it. Sick from silence and complicity.

Starting January 6th, we are declaring a Mental Health Sick Leave. We can bear the moral weight of this no longer.

Our immediate demands are simple: - Protection for hospitals, children, healthcare workers, and civilians under international law. - Immediate ceasefire and an end to the ongoing genocide. - SEND UNLIMITED MEDICAL AND HUMANITARIAN AID to save the survivors of this genocide.

Our profession demands that we heal. How can we do so when we are part of a system that perpetuates such violence? We must pause, grieve, and demand change.

TOGETHER WE ARE SICK AND THE WORLD MUST CHANGE.

Doctors Against Genocide

We have held press conferences, issued letters to international health organizations, and have repeatedly reported the genocide unfolding in Gaza to the world. Yet, instead of halting the genocide, our countries that are happening in Gaza, are funding and supporting it. We are broken.

Of the pain and suffering we have witnessed—these images, a single voice of humanity is too much to bear.

We are sick. Sick from genocide. Sick from paying for it. Sick from silence and complicity.

Starting January 6th, we are declaring a Mental Health Sick Leave. We can bear the moral weight of this no longer.

Our immediate demands are simple: - Protection for hospitals, children, healthcare workers, and civilians under international law. - Immediate ceasefire and an end to the ongoing genocide. - SEND UNLIMITED MEDICAL AND HUMANITARIAN AID to save the survivors of this genocide.

Our profession demands that we heal. How can we do so when we are part of a system that perpetuates such violence? We must pause, grieve, and demand change.

TOGETHER WE ARE SICK AND THE WORLD MUST CHANGE.