Doctors Against Genocide. (File Image)
Washington, February 21 (RHC)-- Members of the group 'Doctors Against Genocide' visited the U.S. Senate to demand an end to the U.S.-supported Israeli genocide in Palestine and an immediate halt to President Donald Trump's threats to deploy the military to Gaza for a permanent occupation.
Dr. Karameh Kuemmerle, co-founder of Doctors Against Genocide, told reporters: "The situation in Gaza is a medical emergency. It's a medical catastrophe. And the threats of displacement of the population that has been starved and maimed and has been displaced so many times, and then forcibly remove them from their homes, their communities, where they have their connections, is going to devastate them beyond belief, and it's atrocious that the President of the United States is even suggesting that.
Medical professionals from around the country also pushed the upper house of American parliament to restore funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
U.S. President Joe Biden withdrew funding in January 2024 and Trump extended the freeze until at least March 1st. Observers say that without UNRWA, the devastation of the Palestinian people will be almost complete. The UN agency provides 70% of primary care. It provides education, sewage removal and cleaning of the communities.
Doctors Against Genocide said that removing UNRWA is going to be a genocidal act, because it will definitely increase the mortality and the morbidity and increase the death rates in Gaza and even in the West Bank.
Dr. Kuemmerle with Doctors Against Genocide stated: "There is a feeling that there is a lot of hypocrisy with respect to how our medical associations and, frankly, our medical institutions, are responding to what's happening. They're politicizing things that shouldn't be politicized." And he added: "It should not be a political statement or should not be controversial to say that you should not bomb hospitals and that we should not be targeting health care workers."
Dr.Adlah Sukkar, with Doctors Against Genocide, said: "At least 80% of Gaza's health care system has been destroyed, with less than half of Gaza's 36 hospitals just partially operational. Gaza's hospitals remain overwhelmed by patients, most of whom are women and children."
