A vigil for healthcare workers in Palestine outside Rhode Island Hospital

Healthcare workers from across Rhode Island gathered for a vigil to grieve and honor Palestinian healthcare workers who continue to provide care despite harrowing and inhumane conditions...

“The healthcare system in Gaza is decimated. Israel is systematically and intentionally targeting healthcare infrastructure in Gaza and the West Bank,” write organizers with Rhode Island Healthcare Workers for Palestine. “The Israeli military has killed over 350 medical professionals and abducted and/or detained 131 others, including 70 from Nasser Hospital alone. By January 30th the Israeli military had executed 342 attacks on healthcare facilities in Gaza and 364 attacks in the West Bank, as well as 335 attacks on ambulances.”

Around 80 people gathered on the sidewalk outside Rhode Island Hospital’s Ambulatory Care Center at 6 pm on Tuesday to hear poetry, hold a moment of silence, and listen to first-hand accounts from healthcare workers trying to save lives in Palestine. Every six minutes a bell chimed because on average, a Palestinian person has died every six minutes since the war began.

“Mohammad Hawajreh is a Palestinian nurse from Gaza who has worked with Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) for seven years,” said nursing student Rachel Bishop. “Mohammad’s home was destroyed by Israeli airstrikes, and he is sheltering with his family at MSF’s office. Every day, for a month, Mohammad has worked tirelessly around – the clock at Al-Shifa Hospital - the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip - responding to mass casualty on top of mass casualty, trying to save lives in the most unimaginable conditions. Last week, he described what he could of the horrors he is witnessing.

“‘When people first come to the hospital, we receive them in the triage room,’” read Bishop, quoting an interview with Mohammad Hawajreh, in an interview published here. “‘We try to stop the bleeding, cover the wounds, and keep them alive. Most of the patients are children and women. The types of wounds are unbelievable: shrapnel wounds on their faces, all over their bodies; bones exposed; internal bleeding after being under the rubble for hours; deep burns - 40 to 70 percent of the body. Most of the wounds are infected. It's terrifying to express.’”

Rachel Bishop

"We’re currently standing at a grouping of three hospitals that are well-known in one way or another to everyone here,” said family physician Dr. Matty Perry as he helped close out the vigil. “I have intimate memories of these places. As a patient, family member, and as a medical trainee. I have memories that are loving and tender in these buildings, memories of tender care, new life, and hopeful recovery. I also have memories that are deeply sad, of moments that are hard to bear, yet unavoidable and a natural part of life...

"This is a place of healing and care. We see this dissonance hit its extreme when a hospital is explicitly framed as a target of war. When in place of patients and nurses, we hear the words combatants and civilian casualties. Where we once discussed heart rates and oxygen levels, we now talk about shrapnel radii.

"Al Shifa hospital has been under siege by the Israeli military for 8 days. In testimony from a doctor who was at Al-Shifa, he described how medical staff were interrogated, assaulted, tortured, and stripped naked for hours,” continued Perry. “16 doctors are missing. Executed bodies were seen from afar and the staff fear they represent the missing doctors. Out of 280 patients, 140 remain and have been consolidated from 8 buildings down to one. The other buildings have been destroyed."

Here’s the video:

In their press release, organizers write:

“Just this week, doctors from MedGlobal shared recent experiences on the ground in Gaza – hospitals routinely surrounded and besieged by the Israeli army, intentionally cutting off the flow of injured people and medical necessities. This same attack has unfolded at every major hospital, ending the ability for care to be provided. Those needing oxygen are asphyxiating, those needing dialysis or chemotherapy are without recourse, and both starvation and disease are rapidly spreading. Unless immediate intervention occurs, thousands will imminently die, needlessly. At Al Shifa Hospital, doctors worked to re-open the emergency room and a few basic services, at which point the IDF again bombed the hospital and it currently remains surrounded and under siege.

“In the face of this horrific health crisis, we are devastated by Rhode Island’s medical systems' silence and hypocritical inaction. Rhode Island healthcare organizations have spoken out against local, national, and international civilian and healthcare injustices. Lifespan's leaders issued a powerful statement responding to the war in Ukraine, affirming that they ‘unequivocally stand with...refugees of all creeds, colors, and backgrounds, and pledge to actively demonstrate [your] commitment to combating systemic racism and injustice.’ And yet, Rhode Island’s hospitals and major healthcare institutions have remained silent on the genocide in Palestine, claiming to be maintaining “medical neutrality.”

“On March 18th, a letter signed by over 155 healthcare workers (with more people signing on every day), was submitted to the CEOs of all Rhode Island Hospitals calling on them to release a statement endorsing the following:

• An immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza;

• An immediate end to all U.S. military aid to Israel;

• An immediate restoration of full United States funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestinian refugees;

• The provision of unrestricted humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people;

• The return of all Palestinian medical personnel hostages to Gaza and the West Bank; and,

• Full protection of healthcare workers and health systems from further attack and as prescribed by international law.

“To date, no response has been received.”

You can read the letter in full at the footnote.¹

“As healthcare workers, we can hardly imagine the systems the remaining healthcare providers are managing to provide medical services under such extreme conditions: operations and amputations without anesthesia; watching patients die because of the utter lack of lifesaving medicines, food, and clean drinking water; women giving birth without the comforts and support they and their child deserve.

“We struggle to grasp the enormity of these healthcare workers' pain as they continue to offer care to the best of their ability - in a nightmare scenario deliberately created by Israel - to avoid needless suffering and death of so many.

“We are holding this vigil to provide a space for mourning, and remembrance, and ultimately to express our hope for a ceasefire and a resolution to this suffering. In our grief and our rage, we hope that the message of this vigil reaches these CEOs and that they rise to this moment by meeting our demands and standing up for our Palestinian peers.”

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1. Here’s the letter:

To:

• Mr. John Fernandez, Lifespan President and CEO

• Dr. Michael Wagner, Care New England President and CEO

• Mr. Jeffrey H. Liebman, Charter CARE Health Partners CEO

• Mr. Aaron Robinson, South County Health President and CEO

• Mr. Michael R. Souza, Landmark Medical Center and The Rehabilitation Hospital of Rhode Island CEO and Chairman

• Mr. Lawrence B. Connell, Providence VA Medical Center Director

• Mr. Richard Lisitano, Westerly Hospital President

• Mr. Brett Johnson, Eleanor Slater Hospital CEO

• Ms. Theresa Paiva Weed, Hospital Association of Rhode Island Director

• Ms. Elena Nicolella, Rhode Island Health Center Association President and CEO

Rhode Island Healthcare Workers for Palestine is a statewide network of health workers, students, and associated professionals who stand against the United States-funded genocide of the Palestinian people. We mourn the more than 30,000 Palestinian lives lost and 65,949 injured between October 7th and the time of writing on March 1st. We are outraged by the silence of RI healthcare institutions in the face of this humanitarian crisis. As health professionals, we have sworn an oath to honor human life and preserve the health of our patients.

To that end, we join over 2/3 of the U.S. public, leading global humanitarian organizations, and 153 nations around the world to demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza and the entry of unrestricted humanitarian aid to the people of Palestine.

We have watched you remain silent as the international laws created to protect us, our colleagues, and our lifesaving work are continuously violated. There is ample evidence that Israel is systematically and intentionally targeting Gaza and the West Bank's healthcare infrastructure. The Israeli military has killed 350 medical professionals and abducted and/or detained 131 others, including 70 from Nasser Hospital alone. By January 30th the Israeli military had executed 342 attacks on healthcare facilities in Gaza and 364 attacks in the West Bank. There have been 335 attacks on ambulances. As a result, Gaza's healthcare system has collapsed. On February 28th, the WHO reported that “64 percent of hospitals in Gaza have become non-functional (23 out of 36), with the remainder only partially or minimally functional.” Safe access for international health organizations has been denied and deliveries of medical supplies have been consistently blocked, leaving facilities without adequate medications, bandages, and even water. We have heard physicians speak of performing amputations without anesthesia. We have witnessed surgeons shot by snipers while in the operating theatre. We have watched IDF soldiers impersonate doctors and kill patients lying paralyzed in their hospital beds.

These actions dangerously undermine the principle of Medical Neutrality, putting your employees and all healthcare workers at future risk. By demanding the protection of healthcare workers and their ability to deliver lifesaving medical care, your leadership would send a vital message of solidarity and moral clarity to your employees and our Palestinian colleagues, both here and abroad.

As our government funds a genocide, the silence of our healthcare institutions and professional associations is deafening. In only four months, the US-backed Israeli assault has killed 1% of the entire population in Gaza, with thousands more buried under the rubble. More children were killed (3,195) in the first 3 weeks of attacks than in a full year of any other conflict since 2019. Today, over 12,500 children have been killed. Nearly 20,000 babies have been born and many of these have died during this siege. Two mothers die every hour. “Wounded Child No Surviving Family- WCNSF” has become the common, chilling acronym that no medical professional should ever have to utter. This is not justifiable collateral damage. Israeli actions amount to collective punishment and are grave violations of humanitarian law and the Geneva Convention. On January 26th, the International Court of Justice affirmed what so many of us can see with our own eyes: the rapid, indiscriminate killing; the targeting of civilian infrastructure; and top Israeli officials calling Palestinians "animals" and insisting there are “no uninvolved civilians” and the goal is “erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth," taken together, demonstrate plausible genocidal intent.

In the face of this horrific health crisis, we are dismayed by our medical systems' hypocritical inaction. You, our RI healthcare organizations, have previously spoken out against local, national, and international civilian and healthcare injustices. Lifespan's leaders issued a powerful statement responding to the war in Ukraine, affirming that you “unequivocally stand with...refugees of all creeds, colors, and backgrounds, and pledge to actively demonstrate [your] commitment to combatting systemic racism and injustice. Not only within [your] own institution, but also within the community at large.” Michael Wagner, CEO of Care New England, issued a statement after the Hamas attack on October 7th, asserting he was "concerned about these devastating events that don’t just impact a seemingly far-off region of the world but have personal and emotional ramifications here at home." As we witness the current "far-off" crisis, with its tremendous impacts on refugees and communities abroad and at home, we ask: why do you remain silent?

It is long past time for a ceasefire. The scale of this crisis worsens daily as 2 million Palestinians are subjected to mass starvation, communicable diseases, environmental poisoning, displacement, and lack of healthcare. A recent report from the Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine projects that if a Ceasefire were called today, we could save over 75,000 lives. As institutions committed to saving lives, and to the health and well-being of the Palestinian and Arab public who you serve, we call on you to uphold your moral imperative.

For these reasons, we ask that you speak out unequivocally against attacks on healthcare and call for an end to violations of humanitarian law. Specifically, we call for every Rhode Island hospital to issue a statement endorsing:

1. An immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza. Stop any military action that will result in further injury and death, including ground invasion, bombing, armed drones, and the use of white phosphorus on civilians.

2. An immediate end to all U.S. military aid to Israel.

3. An immediate restoration of full U.S. funding of UNRWA. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East that is responsible for providing the vast majority of humanitarian relief within Gaza.

4. The provision of unrestricted humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people.

5. The return of all Palestinian medical personnel hostages to Gaza and the West Bank.

6. Full protection of healthcare workers and health systems from further attack and as prescribed by international law.

We also request that your institutions materially support organizations providing medical aid and equipment to Gaza and the Occupied Territories and that you take tangible actions to support their staff, especially those most impacted by this violence. Precedents for such actions include Miriam Hospital's delivery of medical equipment to frontline doctors in Ukraine in December of 2022.

We respectfully ask that you consider these requests urgently and that you reply as soon as possible, within two weeks of receipt of this letter.

Sincerely,

Rhode Island Healthcare Workers for Palestine