Minnesota Healthcare Workers, Youth, and Families Honor Palestinians

Minneapolis, MN — A year after Palestinian children held a press conference at Al-Shifa Hospital to denounce Israeli bombings, youth in Minnesota, healthcare workers, and families honored the Gazan youth and healthcare workers with their own press conference demanding an end to the genocidal war on Gaza. Israeli forces have since destroyed Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest medical complex in Gaza, after multiple massacres over the past year.

Along with speeches from Healthcare Workers for Palestine (HCW4P) and Families Against Military Madness (FAMM) organizers, the event on November 9, 2024 held space for Palestinian-American youth to speak in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

“One year ago, the children of Gaza stood in my place in front of cameras pleading to the world for protection. For us to be standing here today means that we have failed the children of Gaza,” Salahadin, a young Palestinian-American, said at the press conference in Minneapolis. He condemned the violence on Palestinians and said, “we, the youth, hear Gaza.”

Another Palestinian-American youth asked, “I wonder how many kids from the [original November 2023] press conference are still alive today? And the ones that are alive, I wonder how much longer will that be true?” He continued, “a year after the press conference those kids still don’t have what they asked for. In fact, it’s gotten incredibly worse.”

A large vertical board with Post-It notes was set up to hold space for people to write messages of what wishes and hopes they have for the children of Gaza. Among the notes were, “Peace! Food! Healthcare! A House!,” “safety, joy, play, CHILDHOOD,” “Peace, Freedom, Space to learn and play,” “I wish you can go to school and be safe,” “I love you,” “I’m sorry things are so hard,” and “for the slaughter to end!”

Youth Psychiatrist and HCW4P member Dr. Asfia Qaadir, called for medical institutions to end their silence and complicity in what Doctors Against Genocide (DAG) call “medicide,” referring to Israel’s systematic destruction of the healthcare system in Gaza.

Dr. Qaadir went on to list the six demands from the national campaign and petition titled ‘Not Another Child, Not Another Hospital.’

Stop Bombing Hospitals and Attacking Healthcare and Aid Workers
Call for the Protection of Children in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon
Call for an Immediate and Permanent Ceasefire and an End to the ongoing Genocide to Allow Health Operations to Resume
Support a Comprehensive and Immediate Embargo on Weapons to Israel and Divestment to Stop the Mass Slaughter of Civilians and Destruction of Healthcare
Advocate for Unrestricted Humanitarian and Medical Access to Gaza
Establish and Support Clinical Healthcare Education to Promote Trauma Informed Care as Best Practice – Stop the Bans on Palestinian Health Education

Placed into the ground with green stems in Minneapolis’ Stewart Park in front and behind the press conference were artistically made red flowers that carried the stories of doctors, healthcare workers and humanitarians that have been killed by Israel over the past year in Gaza.

The conference was held in the backdrop of Abbott Northwestern Hospital, the largest private hospital in the Twin Cities.

FAMM’s co-founder Liz McLister invited the audience “to imagine the devastation that would beset our greater community if the campus behind us were to be destroyed. If unknown numbers of its healthcare workers were being kidnapped and killed. If it’s patients were being shot point blank in their bed, burned alive in mass graves on the same grounds they sought refuge and healing. That’s what happened at Al-Shifa” and hospitals “across Gaza and now Lebanon.”

In April 2024, Unicorn Riot was on the ground at Al-Shifa Hospital after Israeli forces withdrew from their second siege on Gaza’s largest medical complex. The multi-week massacre left up to 1,500 Palestinians dead. Thousands of forcibly displaced civilians were seeking shelter there along with the thousands with medical needs. Mass graves were found adding to the 422 bodies recovered on the grounds. At least 22 patients were killed in their hospital beds.

Doctor Speaks on Two-Week Israeli Siege on Shifa Hospital from Unicorn Riot.

Civilians were reported to have been killed and ran over by Israeli tanks. Unicorn Riot heard from a man outside Al-Shifa sifting through the dirt looking for his brother and nephew. “I’m looking for my brother, but I can’t seem to find him. The tanks have passed through here, and I can’t find either my brother or my nephew. You can see the tank tracks here.”

Palestinian Families Seek Bodies of Relatives After Israel Withdraws From Shifa Hospital Massacre from Unicorn Riot.

Hospitals continue to be targeted by Israeli forces in both Palestine and Lebanon and medical supplies are disastrously limited during the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip. As DAG’s ‘Not Another Child, Not Another Hospital’ fifth demand noted and Dr. Qaadir said at the press conference, medical institutions across the US are being urged to “call for the reversal of the current ban on humanitarian medical missions into Gaza, including medical and surgical supplies.”

Official estimates have the death toll in Gaza at more than 43,700 Palestinians killed by Israel since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. At least 16,765 of the dead are children and more than 10,000 are missing under the rubble. A report published in July indicates that numbers of Palestinians killed at that time could exceed 186,000.

Related: Healthcare Workers for Palestine at Philadelphia Protest Against Israeli Genocide – 9/25/24