Gaza health workers express gratitude for pro-Palestine protests in US, Europe

By Iyad Nabolsi and Hacer Cakir

GAZA, Palestine (AA) - Health workers in the Gaza Strip held a demonstration to thank university students in the US and Europe for their protests in solidarity with Palestine.

A statement by the government's Gaza's government media office said that dozens of health workers gathered at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah to thank the students for their demonstrations in support of Palestine and in response to the genocide in Gaza.

Speaking at the demonstration, hospital spokesperson Dr. Khalil al-Dakran said that Israel carried out more than 3,000 massacres, killing more than 40,000 people, mostly women and children, and wounding at least 70,000 people.

Stating that more than 2,000 people were displaced in Gaza, Dakran said that more than 370,000 houses were destroyed and the bodies of about 10,000 people are still under the rubble of the houses.

He said that Israel targeted and destroyed most of the hospitals and turned them into military barracks and mass graves, adding that 32 hospitals and 53 health centers were out of service and 126 ambulances were destroyed.

Dakran said that 495 doctors, nurses and other health personnel working in hospitals were killed in the attacks, more than 1,500 people were injured and 310 health personnel were detained.

He added: "These protests by university students in the US and Europe, and all free people around the world, are a moral and humanitarian revolution aimed at ending the injustice and genocide against the Palestinian people.

"We express our eternal gratitude to these heroic students, to the lecturers who contributed to the defense of Gaza against genocide, and to the Arab and foreign medical personnel who stood by us to treat the wounded and sick."

Student protests that started at the US's Columbia University on April 17 spread to other schools across the US and other countries across the world.

Thousands of students from many countries, including the US, Canada, Australia, France, and Egypt have staged demonstrations at their universities in solidarity with Palestine.

Israel has waged an unrelenting offensive on the Palestinian enclave since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas last Oct. 7 which killed some 1,200 people.

Tel Aviv has also imposed a crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.

More than six months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins, pushing 85% of the enclave’s population into internal displacement amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

*Writing by Serdar Dincel from Istanbul