26-11-2023
LONDON: A vigil paying tribute to the healthcare workers killed in Gaza during the Israeli-Palestine conflict was held across the UK.
In the past seven weeks, at least 220 health staff have been killed, according to the Hamas-run Palestinian Health Ministry.
Many NHS workers were involved in the vigils with around 500-600 attending the vigil in Westminster, some coming straight from their shifts.
While also paying respects the people who organized the vigil are also calling on the government to demand a permanent ceasefire in the conflict.
Friday marked the beginning of a four-day ceasefire in Gaza but Israel has vowed to continue the fighting when it is up and many Palestinians are desperate for a complete stop to the conflict.
ITV News spoke to Omar Adel-Mannan a Paediatric Neurologist at the London vigil who said: “I think as healthcare workers we are unified and all feel very helpless in this situation.”
He added; “these are people who are dedicating their lives to helping others and they are having to do that in the most extreme and absurdly horrific circumstances and not often having to look after or see their own family members coming in either dead or injured.”
Adel-Mannan said he had worked in Gaza before and planned to go back the next few weeks to join the aid effort there.
Pediatric intensive care doctor in Toronto and member of the Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Tanya Haj-Hassan, read messages from health care staff in Gaza, which she said were personal messages GMV received in the last month.
We need you to reach out to your colleagues to reach our scene of massacre to all the world. We trust you, please be our voice,” an early message by a senior pharmacist a month ago, said Haj-Hassan
Another message by a consultant surgeon at the Al-Shifa Hospital said everything is running out and the hospital is nearly “a trauma hospital” with no other specialties, not even close to enough.
“It is the worst war and we are heading towards a very dark end,” read another message received from a consultant surgeon in Gaza one month ago.
A message from a physician at the Kuwaiti Hospital in southern Gaza described the scenes as “intolerable.” It said: “I wish no one have to live these atrocities. Our hearts are shattered.”
Later, after performing a minute of silence for health care workers in Gaza who were killed, the group chanted slogans, calling for a “Cease-fire now.”
Jeremy Corbyn, former leader of the main opposition Labour Party, was among attendees, who later wrote on X: “Survivors know they may die, but have stayed behind to care for their patients. They haven’t given up on the Palestinian people. Neither should we. Ceasefire now.” (Int’l Monitoring Desk)