Canadian Health Workers Stand With Gaza

As workers, students and activists in the health sector we condemn the
gross and inhumane Israeli massacre of Palestinians in Gaza. We call
for an immediate end to the ground invasion, the bombings and the 18
month siege on Gaza that has created a dire health and humanitarian
crisis in Palestine.

Prior to the latest round of all-out war on Gaza, the 18-month siege
denied Palestinians access to food, drinking water, cooking fuel,
electricity, health care and essential medications. The result of the
Israeli siege on Gaza has been economic deprivation, hunger, thirst and
ill health for 1.5 million Palestinian men, women and children. Medical
facilities have been consistently denied basic supplies, medicines, and
electricity, undermining the ability of local health workers to
effectively treat serious acute and chronic illness. Since the start of
the siege, over 1150 patients have been denied permits to exit Gaza for
critical life-saving treatments, with hundreds of cases of death
documented. Childbearing women have delivered at checkpoints and
newborns have died from families being held at checkpoints.

The recent attacks have targeted health workers, including Arafa Abd
Al-Dayim, a volunteer ambulance driver, who was murdered by the
occupation forces as he drove a Red Cross ambulance to Al-Awda Hospital
on January 4, 2009.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs has
stated that Gaza is being exposed to the most concentrated war actions
ever, and that most of the Palestinian infrastructure in Gaza has
already been destroyed. On January 6, 2009, a United Nations funded
elementary school, which was housing hundreds of refugees fleeing
Israeli attack, was shelled by Israeli forces, even though the school
was clearly marked as a UN installation in Gaza.

The rocket fire from Gaza into Israel, used as a justification for
massacre by Israel as well as the US and Canadian governments and media,
is neither materially or morally equivalent to the gross violence meted
out on the people of Gaza, who suffered the violent expulsion from their
homes and lands in 1948 and continued Israeli occupation since 1967.

The bombing and ground invasion of Gaza represent the worst kind of
butchery, aimed at destroying the Palestinian people through mass murder
and fear. Shamefully the Canadian government has wholeheartedly
supported this massacre of Palestinians. The Harper government, like
previous Canadian regimes both Liberal and Conservative, are more
interested in protecting Canadian corporate, economic and geopolitical
interests than in standing up for human rights or social justice.

As health workers, students and activists we cannot be neutral when it
comes to war and occupation. We stand in solidarity with the
Palestinian people and people of conscience around the world in calling
for an end to the Israeli attacks and massacres, an end to the siege on
Gaza, and an end to the occupation.

Signatories:

Leonor Aracely Arenas Agis, APH member

Yuly Chan, APH Member

Azar Mehrabadi, PhD Student, UBC School of Population and Public Health

David Hendry, Registered Kinesiologist

Martha Roberts, Registered Midwife, APH member

Aiyanas Ormond, Community Worker & Health Activist

Jennifer Efting, Hospital Employees Union staff *organization listed for
informational purposes

Beth Grayer, Labour Committee, Organizing Centre for Social and Economic
Justice member, ESL instructor

Mathew Vis-Dunbar, Labour Committee, Organizing Centre for Social and
Economic Justice

If you would like to add your signature to the letter, we welcome you.
Please send us an email if you forward the letter with your signature
added. Thank you!

Viva Palestine!

Alliance for People's Health
672 East Broadway
Vancouver, BC
V5T 1X6
allianceforpeopleshealth@gmail.com
Canadian Health Workers Stand With Gaza

As workers, students and activists in the health sector we condemn the
gross and inhumane Israeli massacre of Palestinians in Gaza. We call
for an immediate end to the ground invasion, the bombings and the 18
month siege on Gaza that has created a dire health and humanitarian
crisis in Palestine.

Prior to the latest round of all-out war on Gaza, the 18-month siege
denied Palestinians access to food, drinking water, cooking fuel,
electricity, health care and essential medications. The result of the
Israeli siege on Gaza has been economic deprivation, hunger, thirst and
ill health for 1.5 million Palestinian men, women and children. Medical
facilities have been consistently denied basic supplies, medicines, and
electricity, undermining the ability of local health workers to
effectively treat serious acute and chronic illness. Since the start of
the siege, over 1150 patients have been denied permits to exit Gaza for
critical life-saving treatments, with hundreds of cases of death
documented. Childbearing women have delivered at checkpoints and
newborns have died from families being held at checkpoints.

The recent attacks have targeted health workers, including Arafa Abd
Al-Dayim, a volunteer ambulance driver, who was murdered by the
occupation forces as he drove a Red Cross ambulance to Al-Awda Hospital
on January 4, 2009.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs has
stated that Gaza is being exposed to the most concentrated war actions
ever, and that most of the Palestinian infrastructure in Gaza has
already been destroyed. On January 6, 2009, a United Nations funded
elementary school, which was housing hundreds of refugees fleeing
Israeli attack, was shelled by Israeli forces, even though the school
was clearly marked as a UN installation in Gaza.

The rocket fire from Gaza into Israel, used as a justification for
massacre by Israel as well as the US and Canadian governments and media,
is neither materially or morally equivalent to the gross violence meted
out on the people of Gaza, who suffered the violent expulsion from their
homes and lands in 1948 and continued Israeli occupation since 1967.

The bombing and ground invasion of Gaza represent the worst kind of
butchery, aimed at destroying the Palestinian people through mass murder
and fear. Shamefully the Canadian government has wholeheartedly
supported this massacre of Palestinians. The Harper government, like
previous Canadian regimes both Liberal and Conservative, are more
interested in protecting Canadian corporate, economic and geopolitical
interests than in standing up for human rights or social justice.

As health workers, students and activists we cannot be neutral when it
comes to war and occupation. We stand in solidarity with the
Palestinian people and people of conscience around the world in calling
for an end to the Israeli attacks and massacres, an end to the siege on
Gaza, and an end to the occupation.

Signatories:

Leonor Aracely Arenas Agis, APH member

Yuly Chan, APH Member

Azar Mehrabadi, PhD Student, UBC School of Population and Public Health

David Hendry, Registered Kinesiologist

Martha Roberts, Registered Midwife, APH member

Aiyanas Ormond, Community Worker & Health Activist

Jennifer Efting, Hospital Employees Union staff *organization listed for
informational purposes

Beth Grayer, Labour Committee, Organizing Centre for Social and Economic
Justice member, ESL instructor

Mathew Vis-Dunbar, Labour Committee, Organizing Centre for Social and
Economic Justice

If you would like to add your signature to the letter, we welcome you.
Please send us an email if you forward the letter with your signature
added. Thank you!

Viva Palestine!
Alliance for People's Health
672 East Broadway
Vancouver, BC
V5T 1X6
allianceforpeopleshealth@gmail.com