Dr. Yipeng Ge:
Good morning, my name is Dr. Yipeng Ge, I’m a family physician in Ottawa. I acknowledge we are gathering on the unceded, unsurrendered traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe. The impacts of settler colonialism from Turtle Island to Palestine must be acknowledged as the root causes of poor health and social outcomes for Indigenous peoples here on the land in which we occupy and in Palestine, recognizing the ongoing Nakba, or the catastrophe that began in 1948, as a structure and process of genocide. We will be speaking about how Israeli genocidal colonial violence continues to cause unimaginable catastrophic in Gaza and how Canada must end its complicity in this ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza. As Canadian health care workers who returned from Gaza after bearing witness to genocide, we formed a grassroots group, Eyewitness Gaza, to share eyewitness testimony in hopes this would help end the genocide. We wrote to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mélanie Joly, as a group of 19 health care workers who have served in Gaza this past year. It has been nearly four months since we wrote our letter, which still has not received any reply whatsoever. This is beyond shameful. This is ongoing complicity in genocide by this Canadian government. This is ongoing support and active involvement in genocide by this Canadian government. I will briefly introduce my dearly respected colleagues and friends, who you will hear from shortly. Dr. Yara Abou-Hamde is a family physician in Ottawa. She is a member of Health Workers Alliance for Palestine. Dr. Dorotea Gucciardo is a scholar-activist who has been working on capacity-building building projects within the healthcare sector in Gaza since 2012 with the GLIA project. She has been running medical delegations under the World Health Organization emergency medical team system since January this year. She was in Gaza in March and from April to June. Dr. Sheikh Noor Ul Amin is a family physician in Mississauga. He was in Gaza in April. Dr. Rizwan Minhas is a family physician in Toronto. He was in Gaza in April. Dr. Ben Thompson is a general internal medicine physician and nephrologist. He was in Gaza in March.

Dr. Yara Abou-Hamde:
Good morning. My name is Yara Abou-Hamde. I’m a family doctor in Ottawa and I’m speaking today as a member of Health Workers’ Alliance for Palestine. As I sat down to write these remarks, news had just broken that the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, had sustained injuries to his leg after repeated targeting of the hospital by Israeli forces. The week prior, new details had emerged about the torture and death in Israeli prison of Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh, a highly respected orthopedic surgeon and head of orthopedic surgery at Al-Shifa Hospital. For over a year, we have witnessed the destruction of hospitals and healthcare facilities in Gaza, which has since extended to Lebanon. We have witnessed the targeting of ambulances and paramedics, nurses and physicians, pharmacists and medical students. As of two months ago, Health Care Workers Watch had verified the killing of 595 Palestinian health care workers since October 2023, and the actual number is likely to be close to a thousand. Three hundred more Palestinian healthcare workers have been unlawfully detained by Israeli forces in the same time period. The world has normalized this. I stand in front of you today to say this is not normal. As healthcare workers of conscience, as humans of conscience, we refuse to accept this as a new normal. Those of us who provide any kind of medical service understand the physical and mental demands inherent to the provision of healthcare. Now imagine providing this healthcare under repeated bombardment. Under a siege, limiting the entry of not only medications and equipment, but also of food, water, and electricity. Imagine providing this health care on a limited caloric intake. Imagine providing this care while worrying about the safety of your own loved ones, and in many cases, receiving them as casualties. Our colleagues in Gaza are being made to bear the unbearable, and we owe it to them to continue speaking up, like the over 5,000 health care professionals around the globe who have signed the “Not Another Child, Not Another Hospital” petition. We owe it to our colleagues in Gaza to listen to their voices, and to the testimonies of Canadian health care workers who were recently there, and then to act accordingly. We owe it to them to demand that our government take meaningful action to end its complicity in Israel’s ongoing genocide. What we accept as normal becomes the world that we live in, becomes the world that our children live in. We must act accordingly.

Dr. Dorotea Gucciardo:
My name is Dorotea Gucciardo and I stand in solidarity with my health care colleagues here and in Gaza. I’m also representing my organization, GLIA, which has been operating in the Gaza Strip since 2012. In response to the Israeli military’s systemic destruction of health care facilities, we began sending medical delegations to Gaza under the umbrella of the World Health Organization. Until May 7, all medical teams were entering through the Rafah crossing. Each delegate was carrying at least 10 suitcases full of medicine, which was not enough, but it was something. At that point, only 50 trucks were making it into Gaza per day, down from the 500 that were entering prior to October 7. The Rafah pathway provided a straw through which Palestinians could breathe. But after the Israeli military took the crossing, they cut off that pathway. and further choked the population. On average this month, only 30 trucks have been entering the Gaza Strip daily. After May 7, our medical delegations must now enter Gaza directly through Israel, putting the Israeli military in complete control over rotations. Immediately, they imposed crippling limitations. Aid workers are restricted to one suitcase each. Only personal supplies. No medicine. No consumables. No equipment that can be left behind for use. Imagine being a surgeon and not having permission to bring your tools. No toys. No treats. Nothing that could bring joy to a child patient. And most offensively, no person of Palestinian descent is permitted entry into Gaza, thereby further restricting highly qualified and culturally knowledgeable delegates from volunteering their services. In addition to sending in aid workers, we also established a field clinic. Our clinic sees roughly 600 patients a week, and like all Palestinians, every single one of our patients is displaced. Surrounding our clinic are tens of thousands of families living in tents, a thin piece of nylon that can never protect against the blazing sun or as we’re seeing now, the cold winter rains. There is widespread Hepatitis A in these camps. Our patients also come in showing severe malnutrition, suffering from burn injuries, gastrointestinal viruses, and skin diseases due to their dangerous and deteriorating living conditions. One mother brought in her infant with such extreme diaper rash that his entire bottom was raw and bleeding because instead of diapers, which she could not afford at one US dollar apiece, she was forced to use plastic bags. Another mother, nursing an infant, lost her tent this week due to the rising seas. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be running medical delegations. I don’t want to be running a field clinic in Gaza. That clinic should not exist. Israeli attacks on hospitals must stop. Attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure must stop. The Canadian government must comply with all decisions of the ICC, the ICJ and the United Nations. It must treat the Israeli government as the pariah state that it is, and the Canadian government must begin paying reparations for its active involvement in subjugating the Palestinian population to unjust occupation and genocide.

Dr. Rizwan Minhas: Good morning. My name is Dr. Rizwan Minhas. I work as an ambassador with Humanity Auxilium. I stand before you today as a doctor, a Canadian, and most importantly, an eyewitness to the genocide unfolding in Gaza. Let me say this clearly: this is a genocide and if you deny this, you haven’t been there. The United Nations Convention defines genocide as acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. This act could include any of the following four: Number one, killing members of a group. This is happening currently. 180,000 Palestinians have been killed. [Number 2] causing seriously bodily harm. Every day, 10 children lose one or more limbs. So this is also happening. Number three, deliberately inflicting conditions where you can’t even live. This is also happening. Gaza has no homes, no food, no school, no clean water. And lastly, forcibly transferring children to another group. This is also happening. 17,000 children in Gaza are now orphans, unaccompanied and vulnerable. This white coat that I wear, it’s a universal white coat. It stands for empathy, honesty and integrity. It represents a doctor’s duty to protect all lives equally. I feel safe wearing this in Canada. Unfortunately, the same white coat, when a Palestinian doctor wears it, it becomes a target for Israeli soldiers. Since this genocide started, about a thousand health care workers have been killed. Let me just give you an example of one of them. Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh, please remember this name. My colleague mentioned his name as well. He’s an orthopedic surgeon, was abducted from Al-Shifa Hospital. No one knew where his whereabouts were and when he did appear he was killed and tortured and raped as well. As doctors we know our limitations. We may be able to help save a few lives among the injured but we cannot save the dead. Doctors cannot stop this genocide but you can. Politicians can, and yet you choose not to. You choose complicity. Leaders like Senator Marc Gold falsely claim that aid is reaching Gaza. This is not just a lie, it’s a dangerous lie. It obscures the truth and prolongs the suffering of Palestinians. Who should you believe, a senator who hasn’t been there or doctors, eyewitnesses who have been there? Senator Gold, you are wrong. No aid is reaching Gaza, only bombs are. I saw this with my own eyes, I have video evidence. I want to share with you a story of a child I was taking care of in the European Gaza Hospital. Her name is Salma. She was 4 years old. She was brought to the hospital with a severe head injury, unconscious and fragile. Her condition deteriorated. Ended up going to the ICU. We had to do a chest tube and intubate her. She reminded me of my own daughter. I kept hoping someone would come and comfort her, like a parent or a mother, but she was in quotations, a WCNSF, which stands for a wounded child with no surviving family. Each day I stood by her side praying for a miracle, but because of a lack of IV antibiotics, a lack of pain medication, she succumbed to her injuries. Listen, I acknowledge Canada’s humanitarian contributions. Millions pledged for aid, promises of food and water, but let me tell you this. Our Canadian promises are not reaching the people in Gaza, because bombs do not wait for aid. In fact, sometimes it’s not even aid. It’s a trap for more killing. Canada is helping, but Canada is also complicit. When we condemn violence yet fund it, we are complicit. When we call for peace but turn away from justice, we are complicit. And history will ask us, what did Canada do? Did we lead with courage or did we justify complicity? The time is to choose now. Stop the genocide. Silence does not end suffering. Justice does.

Dr. Noor Ul Amin:
Good morning. I was in Gaza in April 2024 on a medical mission. Sometimes between waves of mass casualties, I would step outside. Me and the other pediatrician that was volunteering there would watch children wandering in the streets. Some were young as five years of age. They were barefooted. Their feet were walking in the rubble with wounds that were infected from the raw sewage, because the water infrastructure is destroyed. There are about 20,000 new orphans in Gaza. I would witness children walking into the bathroom to fill their water containers with dirty water from the toilets. 70% of the people in Gaza are drinking water that is unfit for human consumption. The Palestinians that we were staying with would take from their very little food and water and give it to us, because of their generous Hospitality. And even then some days we went 30 hours without any water. We felt real thirst for the first time in our lives. I am an eyewitness. All the children that I saw in the hospital had diarrheal illnesses, many with severe dehydration. I would treat patients in pools of blood on the floor, pools of other people’s blood. We didn’t have much water, so on some occasions, on one occasion, we had to use – and we felt so horrible about using – some of the IV fluids to wash the blood off us, because we didn’t have anything else. The tools that we had to treat patients were sometimes with some salt water, instead of properly being sterilized or disposed. I am an eyewitness. Why then do the media and our leaders take at face value the genocidal regime’s claims, when time after time after time they have shown to be flagrant lies? They say that the murder of thousands of innocent children is because they are human shields. This is shown to be false, and the Israeli occupying forces themselves have been proven to use the Palestinians as human shields. They claim that their illegal occupation and bombardment of Gaza with the equivalent of two nuclear bombs worth of bombs is because of beheaded babies and to free the hostages, despite these lies being thoroughly debunked and the families of the hostages themselves blaming the Netanyahu government. They say aid is getting in, deliberately using loose and misleading language. Sure, maybe some aid might be getting in. The United Nations publishes and continuously updates information from the ground where we see that about 6% of the necessary aid is getting into Gaza. Israel’s own data reports that only 57 trucks per day entered Gaza in October. On top of that, whatever little tiny bit of aid drips in, it cannot be effectively distributed because of the destroyed infrastructure, bombing of aid delivery trucks, the murder and the bombing of aid workers; and most recently, the United Nations has reported that the Israeli military is allowing some of the aid to be looted by gangs who operate in areas restricted, controlled, and patrolled by the Israeli military under the direct supervision and protection of the Israeli military. This is all part of the deliberate distortion campaign and deliberate dehumanization of Palestinian lives, which then allows genocidal occupiers to conveniently blame the Palestinians for the aid not being delivered. Meanwhile, witnesses on the ground like all of us, and many health care workers from around the world, and the UN […] recently published stating that the Israelis are using starvation as a weapon of war. Under international law, the occupier must not only allow aid to enter, but must also distribute the aid, which the genocidal regime refuses to do, and instead commits massacres like when hundreds were scrambling to get flour from the aid truck in February’s Flour Massacre. The current crisis cannot be solved by military might or through political games. The only way to stop the deaths is to halt the violence immediately. As was said at the representative at the United Nations recently, a ceasefire will not solve everything, but without it, nothing can be solved. This is not about sides in a conflict, this is about human rights. This is a genocide and we should call it that, and this is a genocide that the Canadian government is complicit in. I call on all of our leaders to put an end to this genocide with an immediate and permanent ceasefire. Lift the blockade of the Gaza Strip so humanitarian aid from all border crossings can freely enter and be delivered under the guidance and surveillance of the United Nations. Canada and the world must respect and comply with the ICJ decision. and the gap between rhetoric and action must be closed.

Dr. Ben Thompson:
Good morning. On November 30th of 2023, together with the national leads of three major international charities, including Doctors Without Borders, I met with Prime Minister Trudeau’s office. One year ago, we described evidence of war crimes being committed by Israel. This included targeting of food and water, blocking humanitarian aid, the disproportionate killing of women and children. One year ago, we demanded the Government of Canada publicly demand for a ceasefire, that the Canadian government publicly condemn Israel for targeting hospitals and targeting health care workers, and that the Government of Canada publicly condemn Israel for widespread violations of international humanitarian law, including the crime of genocide. One year ago, our demands were ignored. Requests for a follow-up meeting declined. A year later, now, we are live-streaming Ghazali’s worst nightmare. Where we and Ghazali’s had faith in international humanitarian law, instead we found the Canadian government’s complicity. Failure to hold Israel to account then has resulted in tens of thousands of dead Palestinian women and children. Israel has killed over 18,000 children. Every university destroyed. Most hospitals destroyed. Israel targeting water, fuel, food, blocking humanitarian aid. All of this was clear in November 2023, one year ago. We communicated this to the Prime Minister’s office then. I stand before you today, one of 25 Canadian health care workers who have been to Gaza during the genocide. We have borne witness to Israel’s war crimes, forming a collective group called Eyewitness Gaza that includes hundreds of health workers from the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, and lawyers of international humanitarian law. We unanimously agree Israel is committing genocide. Now for the media here that has been shy to use this word, you must stop censoring this word. The French press’s use of the word genocide was a critical step in ending the Rwandan genocide. Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, it’s time you start saying that. In August of this year, we sent a letter warning the Canadian government of the cost of their inaction, demanding immediate action to lift the Israeli blockade on humanitarian aid, to urge for unrestricted access of medical and surgical supplies to Gaza, to enact a full two-way arms embargo, and to comply with the decisions of the International Court of Justice and ICC. Still today we have no response. Despite this letter being signed by every single Canadian health worker who’s been to Gaza during this genocide. As witnesses of that genocide, we are unified. None of us want to be here. We want the politicians of this country to do their job and end this genocide. But instead, Trudeau and Mélanie Joly chose to listen to the Israel lobby groups. These groups’ positions have opposed a ceasefire, denied Israel’s war crimes, denied Israel’s genocide, disrespected the international court’s rulings. This is foreign interference. Why are you willing to undermine decades of international humanitarian law for Israel lobby groups who want to prolong a genocide? We, as Eyewitness Gaza, have all been to Gaza. We know what we saw. We refuse to stop talking about the genocide. So, Justin Trudeau and Mélanie Joly, ignore us at your peril. Justin Trudeau and Mélanie Joly, you must call openly for Israel to stop blocking humanitarian aid, food and water. You must publicly respect. and comply with the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice decisions. This includes support for a Palestinian state at the United Nations. You must enact a full two-way arms embargo now. Not one penny of Canadian money can go to support a state that is committing genocide. Now I said before, as many of my colleagues did, I don’t want to be here. But like my Eyewitness Gaza colleagues, I take my responsibility very seriously. Anything I can do to stop a genocide — I will. But as a humanitarian and as a physician, I can’t do this myself. A genocide should be ended by international leaders like Justin Trudeau and Mélanie Joly, when they decide to take their responsibilities seriously too. Our Palestinian brothers and sisters, they deserve to live in dignity, without occupation and without genocide. Justin Trudeau and Mélanie Joly, your actions up to this point have supported Israel’s genocide. It’s time for you to change course. It’s time for you to act. Thank you.