Dear World Leaders,
“I’m so scared…please come.”
No child should ever speak these words, not in terror, alone, in their final moments. Yet these were the last recorded words of 5-year-old Hind Rajab as she pleaded for an ambulance to reach her.
On 29 January 2024, Hind spent more than three hours on the phone with the Palestine Red Crescent Society, pleading to be rescued following the killing of her family members in their car by the Israeli military. For more than three hours, PRSC rescuers waited for a green light from the Israeli authorities to conduct their rescue, only to be killed by Israeli forces after their mission was approved. The killing of Hind, her family, and her rescuers is not an isolated tragedy, it’s a devastating reflection of a broader truth. An entire population has been besieged, with hundreds of thousands being injured, disappeared and killed. Gaza now has the largest number of child amputees in modern history, and at least 20,000 Palestinian children have been killed since October 2023-, lives cut short, voices silenced, and futures stolen. Their killings cannot be ignored, and the lives of Palestinian children and all survivors still doing all they can to live, must be protected.
The government of Israel has systematically undermined Gaza’s healthcare system for more than two decades; since October 2023, the healthcare system has been under direct attack, 1,153 of the 2,925 attacks on healthcare in the entire world took place in Palestine alone. Israel’s systematic attacks on hospitals and unlawful blockade have collapsed Gaza’s healthcare system. It has been bombarded into collapse, and the majority of hospitals damaged or destroyed, requiring makeshift clinics to be built while still being bombarded. In the West Bank, emergency medical personnel aboard ambulances are also blocked, beaten, captured and shot. Israel continues to routinely block life-saving services from reaching the sick and wounded. And children are still dying while being denied access to treatment for preventable injuries and illnesses, while others continue to be killed by Israeli attacks. All of this can be stopped.
Through its policies and military activities, the government of Israel has deliberately inflicted conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of Palestinians in Gaza and then denied the very help that could save them. Israel has targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure, including medical and humanitarian personnel whose services the population’s survival currently depends on. And it routinely blocks the entry of medicines, medical equipment, ambulances, and the movement of medical personnel within and into Palestine. These are blatant violations of international law, and yet the international community allows Israel to carry them out with impunity.
The current ceasefire agreement has not put a stop to the violence or ended restrictions on aid. Israeli forces carry out daily attacks in Gaza often with the complicity, silence, and political cover of allied countries and their leaders. Though the private sector and some UN agencies have been able to scale up their activities, it has not come close to what is needed, and the Israeli government continues to block humanitarian assistance and prevent essential medical supplies and personnel from entering Gaza at the scale required, in violation of international humanitarian law. In the West Bank, attacks on healthcare and mass displacement also continue without international coverage or response.
The international community and its leaders must demand the following:
- The immediate restoration of access to movement between Gaza and the West Bank including East Jerusalem, as an integral part of the Palestinian healthcare system. Medical personnel & patients must be allowed to resume movement in both directions, including back into the Gaza Strip following treatment).
- Immediate, unconditional, unhindered and sustained humanitarian access into Palestine and within all areas as non-negotiable. Aid awaiting authorization in all crossings, including the West Bank must be allowed to enter immediately as a legal and moral obligation, not a concept up for bargaining. Medical and humanitarian personnel awaiting entry from the West Bank and abroad must also be facilitated access without further delays and arbitrary restrictions. Entry of materials needed for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of essential infrastructure in Gaza, including medical facilities, temporary/mobile clinics, and dignified shelter for forcibly displaced communities (including prefabricated homes that can stand the winter).
- The immediate release of medical and humanitarian personnel arbitrarily detained.
- Accountability. Independently document and investigate any denial of medical care or targeting of medical and humanitarian personnel, equipment and facilities. Hold perpetrators accountable in domestic, regional and international courts as a measure of justice for the victims, and a deterrence from further violations against survivors.
Hind’s final call for help was met with silence. That silence cannot continue. Every day that medical aid and healthcare workers are blocked and attacked, children's chances at survival are put at further risk. The government of Israel must be held accountable to its obligations under the ceasefire agreement and international law. Without a clear and forceful international response, Palestinian deaths, and patterns of medical aid obstruction will continue.
You, world leaders, must take immediate action to secure guaranteed safe passage for medical patients entering and leaving Gaza. You must also prioritize reopening all crossings and re-establishing the West Bank–East Jerusalem corridor.
Let Hind’s last words remind you of the stakes: open all corridors, ensure the entry of aid in the quantities and items urgently needed, protect healthcare workers, and ensure that no child’s life ends in a plea that the world ignores.
- Wesam Hamada
- ActionAid International
- Avaaz
- B’Tselem
- Human Rights Watch
- Oxfam
- Palestine Children's Relief Fund
- Physicians for Human Rights-Israel
- Syrian American Medical Society
- United Against Inhumanity
- Dr. Adam Hamawy
- Dr. Ayesha Saliha Khan
- Dr. Feroze Sidhwa
- Dr. Mahmooda Syed
- Dr. Mark Perlmutter
- Dr. Mirret El-Hagrassy
- Dr. Mo Mustafa
- Dr. Nahreen Ahmed
- Dr. Tanya Haj Hassan
- Dr. Thaer Ahmad
- Alana Hadid
- Alia Shawkat
- Alison Oliver
- Annmarie Jacir
- Annie Lennox
- AURORA
- Billy Howle
- Brian Eno
- Bruce Cohen
- Cynthia Nixon
- Damon Albarn
- Denise Gough
- Diane Guerrero
- Hannah Einbinder
- Ilana Glazer
- Indya Moore
- Jemima Khan
- Joaquin Phoenix
- Kaouther Ben Hania
- Khalid Abdalla
- Mahershala Ali
- Mark Ruffalo
- May Calamawy
- Melissa Barrera
- Michael Stipe
- Misan Harriman
- Mo Amer
- Morgan Spector
- Nikita Gill
- Peter Capaldi
- Rosa Salazar
- Rosie O’Donnell
- Sepideh Moafi
- Shepard Fairey
- Simon Pegg
- Simone Leanora
- Susan Sarandon
- Tom Morello
- V (formerly Eve Ensler)
- Yorgos Lanthimos
- Zawe Ashton