Seminar to Launch Study on “Silenced Voices and Militarized Spaces: Palestinian Physicians in Israeli Hospitals after October 7, 2023”

On Saturday, February 22, 2025, Mada al-Carmel – The Arab Center for Applied Social Research held a seminar to discuss the findings of a study on “Silenced Voices and Militarized Spaces: Palestinian Physicians in Israeli Hospitals after October 7, 2023”, written by researcher Ghada Majadle.

The seminar was opened by Dr. Areen Hawari, the Director of Mada al-Carmel, who gave introductory remarks in which she outlined the study, its context and significance. Ghada Majadle, a researcher specializing in the intersection of health and politics and policy analyst for Palestinian Policy Network Al-Shabaka, then gave a presentation about her study. Dr. Osama Tannous, a pediatrician, public health scholar, and Co-Director of the Palestine Program for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University, as well as Professor Salim Haj Yahya, Professor of Cardiothoracic and Transplant Surgery at the University of Glasgow and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Hebron University, then both gave commentaries. Omnia Zoabi, a research assistant at Mada al-Carmel, moderated the seminar and facilitated the dialogue between the participants.

The seminar featured a discussion of the main findings of the study, which examined rights violations against Palestinian doctors and other healthcare workers following the events of October 7 and the ensuing war on Gaza. The presentations shed light on incidents of persecution against doctors and other healthcare workers uncovered by the study, signifying a disturbing escalation in the repression and silencing of Palestinian voices within the Israeli healthcare system. The seminar also addressed the role of the Israeli healthcare system as an integral part of the state’s structures, and thus a politically non-neutral space.

The event closed with an open dialogue that gave the doctors, academics and activists in attendance an opportunity to share their questions and views, enriching and elevating the discussion with their diverse experiences and intellectual perspectives.

To read the research, click here.