Doctors Against Genocide Hold DC Rally for 'Bread Not Bombs' in Gaza

Members of the international advocacy group Doctors Against Genocide rallied outside U.S. Congress in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday to demand that lawmakers push for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and an end to Israel's use of starvation as a weapon of war in the besieged Palestinian enclave.

Around 20 DAG members in white lab coats held up pieces of pita and chanted, "Bread not bombs, let the children eat" during the Capitol Hill rally.

"The Israeli government's deliberate malnutrition, starvation, and attack on healthcare in Gaza has worsened and potentially portends extermination of masses of the Gaza population, particularly tens of thousands of children," said Dr. Karameh Kuemmerle, a Boston-based pediatric neurologist.

Last week, the United Nations World Food Program distributed the last of its remaining food aid in Gaza, where embattled residents now have no outside food source amid the Israeli blockade. DAG said Wednesday that "gastroenteritis and diarrheal diseases now run rampant due to Gazans attempting to survive on spoiled food, while others starve to death."

Palestinian officials, U.N. experts, and international human rights groups accuse Israel of perpetrating genocidal weaponized starvation in Gaza by imposing a "complete siege" that has fueled deadly malnutrition and disease among the coastal enclave's more than 2 million people, especially its children.

"When I treated Gaza children two months ago, children were already starving," Colorado pediatrician and DAG member Dr. Mohamed Kuziez said ahead of Wednesday's rally. "After 60 days of total blockade from essential nutrition and medical aid, uncounted more are dying slow, unnecessary deaths."

U.N. officials say there are nearly 3,000 truckloads of lifesaving aid, including more than 116,000 metric tons of food—enough to feed a million people for as long as four months—sitting at the Gaza border awaiting Israeli permission to enter.

"Hope is running out to save tens of thousands of children," Kuziez warned. "When children die of starvation, they don't even cry. Their little hearts just slow down until they stop."

Some of the speakers at the Capitol Hill rally hailed the resilience of Gaza's medical workers, who have suffered not only Israel's bombing and siege of hospitals and other healthcare infrastructure, but also kidnapping, torture, and apparent execution by Israeli troops.

"My Palestinian healthcare worker colleagues demonstrated something for which I have no word, because it goes beyond compassion, beyond skillful dedication, beyond courage," said Dr. Brennan Bollman, who just returned from Gaza. "They lost their family members and returned to work the following day."

"They need food, for their patients and for themselves; they need this illegal and unconscionable blockade to end," she added.

In addition to calling for an immediate cease-fire and lifting of Israel's blockade on Gaza, DAG is also demanding protection of children facing starvation, an end to U.S. bombing of Yemen, and safeguarding the U.S. Constitution and freedom of speech amid attacks on medical professionals' livelihoods.

Wednesday's rally came as the International Court of Justice (ICJ) held a third day of hearings on Israel's legal obligation to "ensure and facilitate the unhindered provision of urgently needed supplies essential to the survival of the Palestinian civilian population."

The ICJ is currently weighing a genocide case brought against Israel by South Africa and supported by dozens of countries, either individually or as members of regional blocs.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are also fugitives from the International Criminal Court, which has ordered their arrest for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during a U.S.-backed war that has left more than 184,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and nearly all Gazans forcibly displaced, often multiple times.