No More U.S. Dollars For Genocide in Gaza

Sunday, about 200 doctors, nurses, and supporters of Gaza gathered in the meadow of  Piedmont Park to raise awareness of the medical and humanitarian catastrophe happening in Gaza.

The featured speaker was Dr. Laura Badwan. a pediatrician in Atlanta who serves on the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF) Medical Advisory Board. PCRF is a nonprofit, non-religious, non-political organization that helps treat children. Dr. Badwan has volunteered on various humanitarian trips to Gaza.

Dr. Badwan gave updates on the horrifying and heartbreaking statistics in Gaza.

The death toll in Gaza exceeds 11,000, with 1000s more unaccounted for, and almost 5000 children have been killed. Hospitals, churches, mosques, schools, and universities are being bombed.

According to the Ministry of Health, 220 healthcare workers have been killed, including 36 physicians. 20 dentists, 70 nurses, 21 paramedics. Twenty-two hospitals and 49 primary healthcare facilities are no longer operational. The largest hospital in Gaza City, Al-Shifa, is comparable to Grady Hospital in Atlanta. It has now collapsed.

Some patients who were in the Intensive Care Unit  (ICU) have perished due to loss of power, and infant babies requiring incubators and ventilators are now without their lifeline. Three out of the 39 infants requiring these lifelines have died already.

 Surgical whiteboards that once held the promise of healing. Now, say whoever stays until the end will tell the story. 

The lack of food, water, medication, and electricity now lead to secondary deaths from starvation, malnutrition, dehydration, infectious diseases, and infected wounds that are multi-drug resistant due to delay in treatment. 

 Untreated medical conditions like cancer, heart disease, kidney disease, and pulmonary disorders are now claiming innocent lives.

The equivalent of more than two Hiroshima-type nuclear bombs have been rained on Gaza, and more Palestinian children have been killed in Gaza in the past month than the number of soldiers killed in entire wars. It is estimated that one child is killed every ten minutes.

” We stand here this evening as those in the medical profession and beyond to say to our colleagues, we hear you, and we’ll speak for you. We see you and cry with you. We feel your pain and our heartbreaks alongside you,” Dr. Banwan said.

“Our humanity brings out the best in us. I see hope in the veils being lifted and the truth being exposed. And while they will try to silence our truth-tellers, they can no longer lock it back up in Pandora’s Box. This moment is redefining our world.”

The world is witnessing the genocide of innocent men, women, and children in Gaza. There is no safe place to run or hide. Gaza is an open-air prison, and the people are slaughtered with no place to go. Every humanitarian agency calls Netanyahu to ceasefire, but he refuses. Our U.S. tax dollars are paying for this genocide. 

The majority of the media in the United States continues to tell only one side of this conflict. 

Muslims Hold A Hunger Strike At Warnock and Ossoff Office 

Friday, I had the opportunity to interview Altaf Lal with Voices of Muslims.  Lal brings perspective and balance to the conflict. 

Lal said this is our message to our two senators: 

“We send you to DC to represent the people. You should go there for us and not submit to the lobbyists and promote warfare against innocent people. This is colonialism, imperialism to the highest order.

October 7th was a tragedy. Before October 7th and after October 7th, this is a tragedy of seven decades. We need to look at the whole picture. Ninety percent of those who are killed in Gaza are innocent men, women, and children.

 Christian hospitals and educational institutions were bombed. When you bomb a hospital, you are not just bombing the infrastructure. You are bombing the future of healthcare.  When you bomb an educational institution, you are harming society, and the result of a broken society is never good, whether it is in Palestine or anyone else’s country. 

Bombing hospitals is against international law.  For President Biden to be silent about the carnage in Gaza, he knows better, and for him to not speak out is unpresidential. There is nothing fair and balanced about 10K plus innocent Palestinians that have died in a few weeks, and for the president to remain silent about them and still spend our tax dollars to finance the bombing and killing of innocent people is wrong.  

We will work with our Jewish, Christian, and Hindu brothers and sisters.  This isn’t just a Muslim issue. It’s a people issue.  It’s a human issue, and many organizations and entities of multiple faiths join us. You are just seeing the start of this hunger strike and peace protests.  Hopefully, the message will go out that our elected officials must represent us, not the lobbies whose vested interest is in promoting war.” 

Photos by Gloria Tatum