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doctors against genocide
Doctors Are Trained to Save Lives, Not Count the Dead
We are in absolutely no doubt, both from a medical and societal perspective, that a genocide is exactly what is being perpetrated by Israel in Gaza.
Aug 16, 2025
As medical doctors, we are bound by an oath to do no harm. That oath compels us to speak out and act against the ongoing genocide in Gaza, now in its 22nd month, a genocide marked by deliberate starvation, medical extermination, and mass civilian casualties. And we are equally compelled to expose the failure of institutions and governments who could stop it but have chosen silence and complicity.
We called the organization we founded in November 2023 Doctors Against Genocide (DAG) because despite the debate around the word’s precise legal definition, we are in absolutely no doubt, both from a medical and societal perspective, that a genocide is exactly what is being perpetrated by Israel in Gaza.
We are in touch daily with our medical colleagues in Gaza, like their patients now suffering from starvation themselves and working in almost impossible conditions. Israel routinely cuts or limits access to electricity, putting ICU and other patients at dire risk and forcing surgeons to operate using the flashlights on their phones. Some have fainted during 48-hours shifts. Their patients are lying in corridors or being turned away due to overcrowding. Doctors in Gaza have been deliberately targeted by Israeli forces, abducted, tortured, imprisoned, and even murdered.
Because of the high prevalence of extreme malnutrition, patients who might otherwise recover from wounds and injuries inflicted by Israeli gunfire and bombings fail to survive. Put simply, a starving body cannot heal and a starving mother cannot nurse her child. Yet, Israel has blocked infant formula from entering Gaza, even confiscating it from our international colleagues when they volunteer for medical missions there.
After more than 600 days of atrocities, the prevention of a genocide is no longer possible. But it can still be stopped.
The fuel shortages also drive the water shortages, as pumps that draw up clean water from the depths of the water table are unable to function. This has left the population dependent on lower quality water sources, leading to enterovirus outbreaks.
Now we are seeing outbreaks of meningitis, measles, hepatitis, and polio. These are diseases either eradicated or extremely rare, resurging now due to the intentional denial of food, water, and medicine. Meanwhile, Israel has blocked lifesaving aid, bombed hospitals, and abducted doctors. Our colleague, pediatrician Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, was abducted in December 2024. He has reportedly lost nearly 90 pounds and remains in Israeli custody, tortured, starved, and held without charge.
We have done everything we can. Members of our organization have made countless trips to Capitol Hill, held press conferences, called their senators and representatives and even the White House, all to no avail. We educated our colleagues and our elected officials. We have even faced arrest for demanding “bread not bombs.”
But with each passing day, the bombs continue, and the medical annihilation worsens. Only 27 U.S. senators voted last month to stop a shipment of 20,000 assault rifles to Israel. Just 24 voted against sending more bombs. Few have even acknowledged this as genocide.
Disgracefully, our major US medical institutions, most notably, the American Medical Association, remain silent, abandoning their ethical obligations and forfeiting moral leadership. We no longer seek change from these bodies.
Because we built strong relationships with trusted local actors, we were able to quickly pivot. In late July, DAG began sending funds directly to aid groups across Gaza to deliver hot meals, fresh produce, clean water, and bread to those in immediate need. Prices are astronomical, but the time for perfect solutions is long gone. People are starving now. We chose to act.
The funds we are sending will help offset the financial strain for local aid groups on the ground who must get food to people now, saving them from having to enter the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s brutal distribution points, which have become killing zones.
Among those we’re helping are more than 1,200 people who became newly blind from direct eye injuries during Israeli attacks, and another 4,000 who have lost partial vision. We are also supporting a broader disabled community that cannot reach distant or militarized aid sites.
Our organization is also raising funds to build an urgently needed field hospital on the grounds of the partially ruined Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, once the largest hospital serving the Palestinian population there. Plans have been drawn up for a 140-bed hospital housed outdoors in sturdy tents, along with two operating theaters, two recovery rooms, and communal space for employees. We know it may be targeted, like all of Gaza’s hospitals. But doing nothing is not an option.
After more than 600 days of atrocities, the prevention of a genocide is no longer possible. But it can still be stopped. One phone call from US President Donald Trump could end it. We urge him to make that call, and we urge our colleagues around the world to act with the urgency this moment demands.
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Doctors Against Genocide Hold DC Rally for 'Bread Not Bombs' in Gaza
"Hope is running out to save tens of thousands of children," warned one Colorado pediatrician. "When children die of starvation, they don't even cry. Their little hearts just slow down until they stop."
Apr 30, 2025
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.
🪧 'Let the children eat!'
Doctors Against Genocide visited the US Capitol Hill to advocate for immediate action to end the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip https://t.co/aUJ9X6s4sh pic.twitter.com/RVpm2TX2Co
— Anadolu English (@anadoluagency) April 30, 2025
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.
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Mass General Brigham and Lockheed Martin: The Tale of an Odd Couple
The CEO of Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest weapons manufacturer, serves on the Board of Directors of Mass General Brigham, one of the world’s largest and most prestigious healthcare systems.
Jan 28, 2025
When I think of hospitals, what immediately comes to mind is clean, brightly lit, quiet, and orderly spaces. I think of human healing and of caring, skill, and dedication. I think of technology applied to the noblest purposes. I think of people—people of all ages and colors—healing and being healed, people sharing the same hope that their loved ones will leave the hospital and thrive because of the treatment they received there.
When I think of weapons manufacturers, different images crowd my mind. I think of war, chaos, and destruction. I see maimed and dying people and animals. I see destroyed landscapes. I hear explosions and screaming. I smell smoke, blood, and death.
These thoughts seem to be in profound opposition. So you can imagine my shock when I learned that a member of the Board of Directors of Mass General Brigham (MGB), the giant medical system in Massachusetts with a national and global reach and reputation, is James D. Taiclet, the president, CEO, and chairman of the board of Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest weapons manufacturer.
MGB apparently has no trouble managing the contradiction of its mission and its friendship with one of the world’s top purveyors of death. How much, one wonders, does MGB accept in charitable donations from Lockheed Martin?
Did your mind recoil? Mine too, so I’ll repeat it: The CEO of Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest weapons manufacturer, serves on the Board of Directors of Mass General Brigham, one of the world’s largest and most prestigious healthcare systems.
Leaving, for a moment, the no doubt highly polished board room of MGB, with all of its luxurious appointments, let’s travel 8,000 miles away to the occupied Palestinian territory of Gaza. Though it is highly unlikely that James Taiclet has or ever will set foot here, there is evidence everywhere of his labors. This is because the company whose pinnacle he has reached is one of the largest weapons suppliers to Israel, both in the past, and during the current genocide in Gaza. Its technologies are integrated into Israel’s main weapons systems. Its weapons are frequently gifted to Israel through the U.S. government’s Foreign Military Financing program.
Despite the current, tenuous cease-fire, the Israeli-U.S. genocide in Gaza continues. Some of the weapons and weapons systems supplied by Lockheed Martin to Israel throughout the genocide include:
- F-16 and F-35 fighter jets used to bomb Gaza. These two types of Lockheed Martin aircraft comprise nearly 80% of Israel’s fighter-bomber force and are largely responsible for turning nearly 70% of Gaza into rubble, by United Nations estimates.
- C-130 Hercules transport planes, which supported the ground invasion of Gaza.
- M270 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS) used to bomb Gaza.
- AGM-114 Hellfire missiles for Israel’s U.S.-supplied Apache helicopters, a primary weapon used in aerial attacks on Gaza.
- CH-53K King Stallion heavy lift helicopters (manufactured by Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin subsidiary), used to transport Israeli troops into and out of Gaza.
For 15 months, we witnessed, and those of us with a conscience were sickened by, the genocide in Gaza. We witnessed Israel’s final solution to the Palestinian “problem,” aided, abetted, and in partnership with the U.S. and other Western governments, and paid for by our taxes. Palestinian-British surgeon Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah estimates that 300,000 Palestinians have been murdered in Gaza, up to 12% of the population. The daily toll on children, who account for half of the population, has been historic and horrific, with more child amputees in Gaza than any other place on Earth. It has been accurately pointed out that the greatest threat on Earth to children is Israel. Civilian suffering and death in Gaza have not been “collateral damage,” they have been driven by the deliberate, racist dehumanization of the Palestinian people undertaken by Israel and the West since the horrendous Nakba of 1948 and before.
Let’s pause for a moment to recall that much of this death and destruction has been made possible through the ingenuity of the people of Lockheed Martin, whose leader sits on the board of a massive HEALTHCARE system. Though the cognitive disconnect is severe, please stay with it, because this is the reality of the country and the world that we live in.
Stay with your cognitive discomfort, because the contradiction is even more profound. Not only is MGB’s board member directly responsible for enormous carnage throughout Gaza, his Israeli and U.S. clients have deliberately and systematically targeted the healthcare system of Gaza. Hospitals have been bombed at other times in history, but the extent of the military targeting and destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system is unprecedented, breaking all humanitarian laws and norms including the famed Geneva Conventions. There are no fully functioning hospitals in Gaza. Over 1,000 healthcare providers have been targeted and murdered. Over 400 have been kidnapped and detained in torture camps. Hospitals, vaccination clinics, ambulances, and civil defense rescue squads have been bombed, sniped, and set on fire. Patients have been burned alive in their beds. Starving dogs and cats roam the hallways of tattered hospitals, feeding on the flesh of martyrs. Blockade and starvation have been used as deliberate weapons of annihilation. The four-month Israeli attack on the people and infrastructure of north Gaza was an extermination campaign the likes of which are unprecedented in living memory.
A little over one week into the cease-fire, the people of Gaza have been left to struggle for survival in a hellscape of inconceivable proportions. Israel’s systematic decimation of Gaza’s healthcare system, including its kidnapping and torture of renowned pediatrician Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, who refused to abandon his patients during the Israeli siege of Kamal Adwan Hospital, has been undertaken to destroy the will and spirit of the people, deepen their suffering, and fuel their desire to leave their homeland.
Let’s repeat—James D. Taiclet, the CEO of a company that has made possible these unspeakable horrors, who was found guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide by the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal this month, sits on the Board of Directors of Mass General Brigham healthcare system.
MGB, with its annual funding of more than $2 billion, is the largest, hospital-based research enterprise in the United States. It employs 82,000 people and treats 1.5 million patients annually. Its 2022 revenue exceeded $18 billion. It prides itself not just on the services it provides across Massachusetts, but on its national and global reputation. Its website touts the fact that MGB is the top system for National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding in the world. It boasts of 22 Nobel Laureates and 3,700 ongoing clinical trials designed to “accelerate bringing new treatments and therapies to our patients and the world.”
How does one square this shining vision of striving for optimal human health and performance with the depraved annihilation of the people of Gaza? MGB apparently has no trouble managing the contradiction of its mission and its friendship with one of the world’s top purveyors of death. How much, one wonders, does MGB accept in charitable donations from Lockheed Martin?
While it is crucial that we not lose our capacity for amazement at such a conjoining, let’s not be naïve. The bed-sharing of Lockheed Martin and Mass General Brigham is typical of the corrupt, profit-driven, military-worshipping system we inhabit. Look into who sits on the boards of your local hospitals, colleges, universities, and more. You will find the story repeated ad nauseam.
This story, this old, sickening, tired reality of our politics, our economy, our society, is overdue for radical overhaul. Doctors Against Genocide, a global coalition of healthcare providers and allies who vow to stop global genocides that governments fail or refuse to, has teamed up with River Valley for Gaza Healthcare in western Massachusetts in launching a petition demanding that MGB immediately remove James Taiclet from its board and renounce any association with Lockheed Martin.
C’mon, Mass General Brigham CEO Anne Klibanksi: Lockheed Martin is a criminal enterprise profiting from the wreaking of unimaginable havoc and suffering on humanity and the planet. It should be a global pariah, not have its boss man sitting on your board. Why has MGB failed to speak out publicly about the genocide in Gaza? Why has MGB failed to stand publicly with its healthcare colleagues in Gaza as they courageously struggle against tremendous odds? Your cozy relationship with Lockheed Martin’s CEO combined with your silence on Gaza make you a partner in its genocide and complicit in creating a world in which healthcare facilities and providers are fair game to warlords.
The sickness of U.S. society has deepened sharply with its partnership in the genocide of the Palestinian people. Let’s say no more to necropolitics. As Doctors Against Genocide member Rupa Marya wrote, it is long past time to move from colonial to liberation medicine. From racist colonialism to liberation in all aspects of our lives.
Free, free Palestine. For Palestine’s sake. And because freeing Palestine will free us all.
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