Crossing the red line – UK medics and healthcare workers call for an end to the atrocities in Gaza
Published 10th July 2025
Wearing red clothing to symbolise the red lines crossed during the conflict in Gaza, medics and supporters demonstrated in Westminster’s Parliament Square today in a call for the UK government to end the atrocities.
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.
At least 94 per cent of hospitals in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed. More than 1,500 health workers have now been killed.* Ambulances have been bombed, medical aid is being held at the border, and patients are unable to access vital care.
The event was organised by the Red Line for Gaza coalition that includes Doctors of the World, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF), War Child UK, Oxfam, Medical Aid for Palestinians, British Medical Association, Choose Love, Quakers in Britain, Christian Aid, All We Can, Amos Trust, Anti-Slavery International, Greenpeace, Islamic Relief, Mothers Manifesto, and Humanity & Inclusion.
Simon Tyler, Executive Director of Doctors of the World, read out the testimony of doctor and Field Coordinator in Gaza, detailing her experience in Gaza.
“Hello everyone.
As a doctor in Gaza, I wake up every day to the sound of drones that do not stop, and the uncertainty of my own survival.
We operate in primary health care centers, which are overwhelmed, under-resourced, and stretched beyond limit. And the clinics, hospitals, field hospitals, medical points, doctors and nurses, they treat gunshots on top of cases of malnutrition, delivering babies without anesthesia, comforting families who have lost everything and trying to respond to the mental health needs of the population.
Antibiotics, gauze, saline, skin medications, clean water. They are not basic supplies anymore. They’ve been made luxury items. The patients are no longer just sick; they are starving, traumatized, and displaced.
Health is not affected only by the physical component of our body. It is affected by the social impairments of health, including nutrition, mental health, living conditions which are totally collapsed in the Gaza Strip.
There is a high level of malnutrition among every person in Gaza, including for children and pregnant women. Over 90% of the population are displaced and 2/3 of the population are traumatized.
In addition, children arrive in the clinics, suffering from respiratory infection from living in tense and crowded areas.
There is no cooking gas in the country, so people use some basic tools to cook what they can, including firing woods and some artificial fuel that are very toxic. Mothers who are lactating cannot produce milk for their infants because they themselves suffer from malnutrition. There is no formula milk in the country, so babies, as a result, they suffer from malnutrition.
We have watched entire communities be reduced to rubble, school, mosques, hospitals.
None are spared, and yet we go on. Our doctors here and the medical team in general, they continue because we believe that our people deserve dignity, and this is part of the humanitarian work we do.
So, I want to tell people that even now, even in this humanitarian crisis and even in this public health catastrophe, we keep going, but we need support.
We will have a generation of children who will grow up without proper nutrition, education, nor mental health care.
So we need protection, we need justice, and we need access to basic humanitarian rights.
We need to end this siege, to end the bombings, and to have a safe corridor for aid and freedom to care for our people without risking our lives.
Thanks a lot everyone. I hope that this message can reach the free people of the world.“
Press contact: media@doctorsoftheworld.org.uk
