‘I carry the screams, the faces, the unanswered prayers’- Medics call for the UK government to end the atrocities in Gaza at Red Line event in London

10 July 2025 - Wearing red clothing to symbolise all the red lines that have been crossed in Gaza, UK medics, healthcare workers and supporters demonstrated in Westminster’s Parliament Square today, calling for the government to act to put a stop to the atrocities perpetuated by the Israeli armed forces, including the systematic dismantling of Gaza’s health system and the targeted killing and detention of medics and healthcare workers.

Amidst chants of “Stop attacking patients. Stop attacking ambulances. Stop attacking nurses. Stop attacking hospitals. Stop attacking doctors,” they linked arms in a show of unity with those killed, injured or kidnapped over the last 21 months. 

Several read out testimonies detailing their experiences in Gaza. 

MSF UK's Executive Director, Dr Natalie Roberts, received the following message last night from Dr Mohammed Abu Mughaisib, a medic who’s worked with the organisation in the Strip for more than 20 years:

“I carry the screams, the faces, the unanswered prayers… I’ve been a doctor in Gaza for years, but nothing prepared me for this war. In the past two years I’ve seen children pulled from the rubble, crushed, burned, or missing limbs. More than 15,000 children have been killed. Thousands have had legs or arms amputated. I treated a 7-year-old girl who was injured by an air strike and when she woke up in the recovery room I couldn’t disclose to her that her parents were still under the rubble ….and there is one story after another like this on daily basis.

We work in what used to be hospitals. Now they are broken shells. No water. No electricity. No proper equipment. Sometimes, no painkillers. We perform surgeries in hallways. We try to comfort people we can’t save.

We hope the world hears the voices of Gaza’s medical staff. We hope someone listens.”

At least 94 per cent of hospitals in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed. More 1,500 health workers have been killed.* Ambulances have been bombed, medical aid is being held at the border, and patients are unable to access vital care. ​ 

The Westminster event was organised by the Red Line for Gaza coalition that includes Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF), War Child, Oxfam, Medical Aid for Palestinians, British Medical Association, Choose Love, Doctors of the World, Quakers in Britain, Christian Aid, All We Can, Amos Trust, Anti-Slavery International, Greenpeace, Islamic Relief, Mothers Manifesto, and Humanity & Inclusion. 

Dr Javid Abdelmoneim spoke about his deployment to Gaza as Medical Team lead in June and July 2024. Javid is an emergency medicine physician who trained in the NHS and has worked with MSF in conflict zones and disease outbreaks around the world.

He said: “The mass casualties that I experienced between 9th – 14th July [2024] in Nasser [hospital] alone, had 568 injured and 162 people killed just in those five days... exactly these days last year. That hasn’t changed. What has changed is this new form of injury that’s coming into the ER in Nasser. The children and the adults who are shot seeking aid, they are being deliberately killed and shot with live bullets seeking food... This is a new form of mass casualty – a new addition to the ongoing atrocities in Gaza which have been going too long.”

Jacob Burns is MSF UK’s Migration Operations Manager. Jacob has worked in Gaza many times, most recently in December 2023 and January 2024 as a Project Coordinator.

He recalled: “I remember one patient that we had in the MSF unit in Nasser Hospital, a woman who’d been at home in her tent in Khan Younis when it had been bombed by the Israelis and a fire had broken out. Her children had caught fire and in her desperation to try and extinguish the flames, she hugged her burning children to herself and she’d ended up with horrendous burns all up and down the front of her body. And it’s stories like that that stay with me from my time there.”

Medical staff and health workers at clinics, hospitals and pharmacies around the country were invited to join in by forming their own red lines, and post the photos on social media. ​ 

--ENDS--

*At least 94% of hospitals in Gaza damaged or destroyed: UN – Middle East Monitor

UN warns of deepening health crisis in Gaza amid mass casualty incidents | UN News

 

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This is the media office for the UK office of Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF), an international, independent, medical humanitarian organisation that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, natural disasters and exclusion from healthcare. MSF offers assistance to people based on need, irrespective of race, religion, gender or political affiliation.

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