Thirty British medical professionals have written to Prime Minister Keir Starmer urging him to end the UK’s role in the “unimaginable cruelty” unfolding in Gaza and halt arms sales to Israel.

“It is impossible to know the true death toll in Gaza,” they said, explaining that the Ministry of Health figure of 40,000 Palestinians killed refers only to the number of identified bodies, “but while working in Gaza we bore witness to untold numbers of unidentified bodies, many of them truly unidentifiable due to the extent of damage caused.”
Medical treatment was being administered in unsanitary hospitals that lacked “supplies, water, and medications including antibiotics,” they explained, adding that all medical centres in Gaza were overcrowded. All this meant “surgical incisions were almost certain to become infected.”
“Those of us who worked with pregnant women regularly saw still-births and
maternal deaths that would be easily preventable in any functioning healthcare system.”
In spite of the “raging” epidemics in Gaza, they explained: “Israel has not stopped bombarding civilians in their tents or displacing the malnourished and sick population of Gaza, approximately half of whom are children, to areas with no running water or even toilets available. This is a horrifying reality. It is virtually guaranteed to result in widespread death from viral and bacterial diarrheal diseases and pneumonia.”
Healthcare staff continue to work but are “malnourished, and both physically and mentally devastated.” Many, the medics explained, had also been detained by Israeli occupation forces, sometimes for several weeks or months. “Almost all reported experience of physical and psychological abuse, mistreatment including torture and sexual abuse including being stripped naked, and other cruel and inhumane punishments – punishments given them solely for their being doctors.”
They said recounting the scenes they witnessed in Gaza was “difficult” but “the knowledge that many of the injuries we treated may have resulted from the use of weapons systems and components supplied from Britain” only added to this.
Addressing both Prime Minister Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy they stressed: “If you had seen, heard, and experienced the things we have, there would be no question of placing an arms embargo on Israel.”
In addition to ending Britain’s military support for the attacks on Gaza, they called for crossings into Gaza to be opened “to unfettered aid delivery”, while unrestricted access to the Gaza Strip must be created for medical and surgical professionals, the delivery of immunisation programmes must be ensured and 20 litres of potable water must be provided to each individual every day as a minimum, they explained.
“Every day that the United Kingdom continues supplying weapons and munitions to Israel is another day that the Palestinian men, women and children of Gaza are killed and maimed by weapons, including those manufactured in the UK,” they concluded.