As Israel’s deadly assaults on Gazans and their fragile health-care system rage on, some Quebec doctors are rising in protest by taking sick leave Monday and suspending their non-essential activities for the day.
United under the banner of Quebec Doctors Against Genocide and Health Workers Alliance for Palestine, this group of medical professionals has joined an international campaign called Sick From Genocide.
They assure that patients won’t be impacted by the one-day strike, as the activities they’re halting – meetings, conferences and teaching – are non-clinical and non-essential. Those who aren’t able to step away from their tasks are invited to wear symbols of solidarity like pins and keffiyehs.
A small group of doctors protested in front of the Maison de Radio-Canada early Monday and others will gather for a silent walk in Montreal at 5:30 p.m. to honour health-care workers who have been killed in Gaza.
Montreal family physician Sophie Zhang who took part in the demonstration this morning explained that health staff and others “cannot remain silent.”
“A lot of us health-care workers, doctors aren’t able to continue working and acting as if nothing is happening when our colleagues are suffering in Gaza,” said Zhang, a member of Quebec Doctors Against Genocide.
Last month, the UN Human Rights Office stated in a report that the health-care system in Gaza was at the “point of almost complete collapse” because of the attacks. More than 45,500 Palestinians have been killed in the past 15 months, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Sophie Zhang, a Montreal-based family physician, says medical professionals ‘cannot remain silent’ in the face of the ongoing violence in the Palestinian enclave. (Submitted by Sophie Zhang)
Zhang and her colleagues are demanding the release of health-care workers detained by Israel, an arms embargo and a ceasefire. They also call on health-care professionals around the world to sever ties with Israeli universities and medical schools.
“Health-care workers should be protected under international humanitarian law, even during times of war, and that’s not what we have seen,” said Zhang.
She stated that many doctors who are protesting Monday felt compelled to act because of a sense that their country is complicit in the ongoing violence.
A ‘very shocking’ report
Zhang spoke to Canadian doctors who have been on the ground in Gaza and shared their “horrifying” experiences with her. Most of the patients they saw, she says, were children.
She pointed to a “very shocking” Doctors Without Borders report as evidence of the dire conditions in Gaza.
The Dec. 19 report cites statistics from the World Health Organization that show that from Oct. 7, 2023 and Sept. 18, 2024, 512 attacks on health-care were reported, 409 facilities were affected and 115 ambulances were impacted in the Gaza Strip.
The report also noted figures from local health authority, highlighting that as many as 10,000 cancer patients are left without care.
“Throughout the war, it has been Israel’s policy to reduce the amount of food, water, medical supplies and relief items that entered the Strip to a trickle, in what seems a way to collectively punish the population,” read the document.
Zhang added that doctors on the ground are risking their lives every day, simply by doing their work.
“The Israeli army often uses the so-called Hamas stronghold saying that [militants] are in hospitals, and none of the health-care workers who have been there have ever seen any evidence of this,” said Zhang.
‘Chilling’ stories
Khadijé Jizi, a Montreal-based genetic counselor and member of Health Workers Alliance for Palestine, has also participated in multiple protests in support of Palestinians.
“What we’re seeing now in Gaza, it’s beyond anything that we have ever witnessed in our lifetime and it is a genocide,” said Jizi.
She criticized the “hypocrisy” of governments, including Canada’s, for what she sees as a different treatment of Gazans’ human rights compared to those of other populations.
“We always treat our patients as equal, no matter their background, their ethnicity, their religion, where they come from, and seeing that these principles do not apply to a population as the Gazan population, it was really an eye-opening fact,” said Jizi.
Montreal genetic counselor Khadijé Jizi, left, took part in a protest in solidarity with Palestinians and has advocated for the medical evacuation of Gazan children to Canada. (Submitted by Khadijé Jizi)
She recently met families who fled Gaza and heard their “chilling” stories, including one from a pregnant woman who underwent a C-section without anesthesia.
“They basically said they have seen death in their own eyes and they escaped death several times,” she said.
Jizi says she will continue to advocate for medical evacuations for children from Gaza, despite the silence she says advocates like her have faced from institutions.
“Hopefully we’ll see a ceasefire in 2025,” she said.