US doctors returning from Gaza call for arms embargo on Israel

A group of doctors who recently returned from Gaza are urging the Biden administration to impose an arms embargo on Israel, adding that doctors were unable to provide care as the bombardment of Gaza continues with "direct support from the US".

The doctors made the call during a panel conference with the  Uncommitted National Movement (UNM), which was held on the sidelines of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago.

Dr Tammy Abughanim, a paediatric intensive-care surgeon said: "When we press the Biden administration for an arms embargo as physicians, what we are saying is we cannot do our jobs as bombs are falling."

"We cannot do our jobs, because Israel has made our jobs impossible, and Israel has made our jobs impossible with the direct support of the United States."

"We all know the obvious step is to stop supplying Israel with the arms that it is using, the weaponry that it is using to target and kill civilians."

The healthcare workers recounted the horrors of working on the frontlines in Gaza, and it was because of Israeli restrictions that they were preventing patients from receiving medication, including painkillers, to help ease the suffering of those injured from bombardment.

"I saw children's heads smashed to pieces by the bullets that we paid for, not once, not twice, but quite literally, every single day," said trauma surgeon Dr Feroze Sidhwa noted in the conference, adding that an arms embargo "is not a radical idea".

Sidhwa also read aloud a letter written by Mark Perlmutter, a Jewish-American doctor who accompanied him on his trip to Gaza but could not attend the press conference.

Noting having seen children being shot, Perlmutter "could never have imagined that my [his] government would be supplying the weapons and funding that keeps this horrifying slaughter going, not for one week, not for one month, but for nearly an entire year now".

"For the good of the Palestinians, for the good of the United States, for the good of Israel, for the good of Judaism, and indeed, for the good of international law and all of humanity, please stop arming Israel," Perlmutter added.

Emergency physician Dr Thaer Ahmad also participated in the panel, recounting his experience. Ahmad also walked out of a meeting with Biden and Harris in April "out of respect for my [his] community" as he was the only Palestinian-American present.

The US has been Israel's strongest supplier of arms, providing $3.8 billion in military aid per year, with the Biden administration recently approving $26 billion in addition to wartime assistance in April.

President Biden asserted the weapons being sent are "defensive", despite rights groups pointing out airstrikes where there was credible evidence of Israel violating international law.