Leading Israeli physicians, researchers demand release of hostages
“Silence and standing on the sidelines is not an option in light of the atrocities and inhumanity we witnessed on October 7."
By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH Tzili Wenkert, a holocaust survivor and the grandmother of Omer Wenkert who is held hostage by Hamas terrorists in Gaza, attends an event at the "Hostages Square", outside the Art Museum of Tel Aviv, calling the Israeli government to act for immediate release of the hostages on October 28, 2023(photo credit: GILI YAARI/FLASH90)
The online Rambam Maimonides Medical Journal (www.rmmj.org.il) produced at Haifa’s Rambam Health Care Campus has just released an editorial demanding the release of all hostages taken by Hamas terrorists to Gaza.“Silence and standing on the sidelines is not an option in light of the atrocities and inhumanity we witnessed on October 7. The savagery of the Hamas massacre was executed indiscriminately upon children, women, older people (some of whom are Holocaust survivors), infants, and even medical professionals caring for the casualties. Currently, there are about 230 women, men, children, and babies being held hostage – among them cancer patients and others with serious disorders, doctors, and other medical professionals.”It goes on to say that “we cannot rest, and we must address the plight of our hostages who are being held by terrorists motivated by hatred and showing no respect for life, whether that of their enemies, their own people, or even themselves. For many years, the international community has criticized Israel for positioning itself against the Palestinian aspirations for autonomy. Yet, for the past 20 years, hardly any criticism has been directed at Hamas and the Islamic Jihad for their indiscriminate firing of thousands of rockets and mortars upon Israel’s citizens. Moreover, the international community has largely remained silent about the intentional and indiscriminate murder of innocent civilians through bombings, shootings, and stabbings perpetrated by individuals claiming to be ‘freedom fighters.’”People protest demanding the release of Israelis held hostage by Hamas terrorists in Gaza, in the southern Israeli city of Kiryat Malakhi, October 28. (FLASH90)The authors wrote that “barely a word is spoken or published about the [other] abducted Israeli civilians and soldiers who, for years, remain hostages of Hamas. They are secluded from civilization with no fundamental rights guaranteed by international law. We call upon all members of the global medical community to demand the immediate release of all the hostages abducted on October 7. Furthermore, we call upon the global medical community to condemn anyone who supports Hamas, Hezbollah, the Islamic Jihad, and every other form of terrorism and demand the immediate disarmament and dismantling of these organizations – whose main purpose is to destroy those who differ from them, whatever their rationale. They do not merit the empathy of those who cherish life.”The international medical community was quick to accuse Israel of bombing the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza before all the facts had become available, they noted, but it didn’t take long to provide incontrovertible evidence that this disaster resulted from a failed missile launched by the Islamic Jihad, targeted at Israeli civilians. How is it that so many leaders, representatives, and members of the medical and academic community, which prides itself on evidence-based conclusions, rushed to condemn Israel based on Hamas’s false and libelous reports that Israel had targeted the al-Ahli Hospital?”Horrors have been committed by Hamas such as sacrificing the lives of their own civilians in the form of human shields on the one hand, while, on the other hand, specifically instructing the terrorists to gruesomely murder, torture, rape, mutilate, and kidnap Israeli civilians. “Numerous documents surrendered by the captured terrorists give testimony that these horrors were committed under the directives of the Hamas leadership and fueled by Captagon pills. We should all be truthful about the casualties of a war forced upon Israel and initiated by a terror organization with the stated aim of exterminating the Jewish state and its supporters.”The authors noted that Hamas uses their own schools to launch rockets, their prayer houses as ammunition depots, their hospitals as headquarters, and their own people as human shields. “The consequences are dire when highly respected medical and academic leaders confuse their students, protégées, and each other by making cowardly and ambiguous statements that fail to distinguish between Israel and Hamas... They become actively complicit in the perpetuation of hostilities that are spilling over in university campuses including faculties of medicine and medical centers worldwide, where Jewish people are now being threatened and harassed.”
