Amplifying Palestinian voices is not only a way to honour those we have lost, but a vital act to safeguard the existence and dignity of Palestinian health workers — now and for generations to come, writes Amira Nimerawi [photo credit: Getty Images]
As a Palestinian health worker and mother, I have watched in anguish as Gaza’s health system is systematically destroyed day after day.
The targeting of hospitals, ambulances, and healthcare workers is not collateral damage — it is a calculated assault on the very foundations of healthcare and humanity.
I know the heavy sinking feeling that washes over you when you come face to face with an Israeli tank or sniper, despite being in an emergency vehicle, you know you are not safe. A few years ago, I could convince myself they only meant to intimidate. Today, in Gaza, being a health worker is a guaranteed death sentence. The pain of being forced to watch from afar is a wound that never closes.
For 20 months, I have watched my colleagues in Gaza waste away to skin and bone. I have listened helplessly to stories of loved ones risking their lives for food, or of an aunt near death for lack of iron supplements, because there is nothing left. No medicine, no food. Nothing to sustain life. All because Israel willed it, and the world allowed it.
Each morning I wake with a visceral dread, terrified that the next name or image I see will be someone I love — a friend, colleague, or place — destroyed. The helplessness of exile is a unique agony — your heart is always elsewhere, breaking again and again, even when you think it couldn’t possibly break anymore. You cling to your memories, hoping that holding them tightly enough might somehow restore all that has been destroyed.
For months, my UK colleagues and I have pleaded with our medical institutions to speak out. We have been met with silence or polite deflection. I have seen colleagues here profiled, targeted, attacked, and even dismissed simply for standing against genocide. The deepest pain comes from realising that the very institutions tasked with upholding our health system are complicit, through silence, in its undoing, both here and abroad.
After 20 months of genocide live-streamed onto our phones, after the devastating realities of our fellow health workers like Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh —abducted, detained, tortured to death — or Dr. Alaa Al Najjar, who buried nine of her children and her husband (also a doctor), their stories forever seared onto our hearts — we finally saw a glimmer of hope.
At this week’s British Medical Association (BMA) Annual Representative Meeting, doctors from across the UK took a collective stand. Motions calling for an end to UK complicity in the Gaza genocide and for the protection of health workers advocating for justice were overwhelmingly voted in. The overwhelming support for these motions signals a turning point: the medical community will no longer accept silence or complicity.
Palestinian health workers have long been known for their sumood — their steadfastness and resilience in the face of unimaginable adversity. Now, the doctors who fought to put forward these motions have shown that sumood is not reserved only for Palestinians.
Their unwavering commitment proves that steadfastness in the pursuit of justice and solidarity is a universal responsibility. It remains incumbent on all health workers, everywhere, to remain steadfast in the face of silencing and deliberate attempts to derail any work for solidarity. To push back against silencing is to resist both genocide and the erosion of the very essence of healing.
However, the passage of these motions is not the end of our struggle; it is just the beginning. The BMA and doctors across the UK must translate these commitments into concrete action.
Gaza’s health workers have endured a brutal siege for 17 years, calling out for support as their colleagues, families, and patients were subjected to a system of medical apartheid.
To those colleagues and institutions who have not stood against the ongoing genocide, who have not taken tangible steps to fulfil your legal obligations: perhaps you think it is normal for Palestinians to endure such torture and depravity? That because we have endured it for decades, and remained dedicated to our patients and communities, it somehow doesn’t count? Do you imagine we no longer feel fear? Are our health workers and their babies just not human enough for you?
Health workers everywhere must actively seek out and amplify the voices of Palestinian health professionals if we are to achieve genuine solidarity. This has never been more urgent — every day, we face the brutal reality of ethnic cleansing, with 1,580 health workers deliberately targeted and killed.
Amplifying Palestinian voices is not only a way to honour those we have lost, but a vital act to safeguard the existence, dignity, and leadership of Palestinian health workers — now and for generations to come.
Medical associations have a legal and ethical duty to condemn these violations without hesitation, demand accountability through international justice mechanisms, and pressure governments to end military and financial support for these crimes. You are not removed from what is being allowed to happen in Palestine.
Humanity is watching. The moral authority of the UK’s medical community is at stake — not just in Gaza, but in defending the very principles that underpin our profession. Gaza has given the world a second chance to stand against occupation and apartheid — and our colleagues, and the world, have failed.
Will you allow the normalisation of attacks on healthcare to be your legacy? Or will you let this week’s vote be the moment the British medical establishment finally woke up — and recognised that Palestinian health workers are human?
Amira Nimerawi is a Palestinian health worker with a background in nursing and global health. She is Program and Impact Specialist at the Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS) and the CEO of leading UK health worker-led, health advocacy organisation Health Workers 4 Palestine (HW4P).
Follow her on Instagram: @amiranimerawi
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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff, or the author’s employer.
