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“I am personally shocked by the systematic undermining of principles and standards we used to take for granted.”

These words from Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary-General, mirror the feelings of thousands in the global medical community. As Australian doctors, our horror at the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is accompanied by our disbelief at the silence from much of our medical leadership.

Australian medical bodies have a strong precedent in health and humanitarian advocacy, including climate change, refugee rights, marriage equality, and an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the Australian Medical Association (AMA) called on our government to support Ukrainian refugees and the President of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians publicly assured a Ukrainian cardiologist “that we stand in absolute solidarity with you and your colleagues and that we deplore and condemn the actions of Russian invaders.”

Since Oct 7, 2023, Israel has conducted almost 600 attacks on health facilities and killed at least 300 health-care workers in Gaza.

More children were killed in the first week of the conflict in Gaza than in the first year of the war in Ukraine.

UNICEF has called Gaza the most dangerous place in the world to be a child.

The International Court of Justice has ruled Israel’s actions as plausible genocide.

Under the Geneva Conventions, Israel, as the occupying power, is responsible for health services in Gaza, but they have banned the entry of critical medical supplies, including insulin pens for children.

The UN, WHO, and Doctors Without Borders have repeatedly condemned Israel’s attacks on health care and called for a ceasefire. Disturbingly, most Australian medical bodies have abstained from echoing these calls and have asked only that medical neutrality be respected. This silence does not represent thousands of Australian health-care professionals-nor medicine’s foundational ethical principles.

The Hippocratic principle of first, do no harm, precludes our silence. We condemn not only this genocide in the making, but also the preceding decades of Israel’s “belligerent occupation” of Palestine and the suffering inflicted on the Palestinian people.

Australian doctors have taken action in the form of petitions, open letters, rallies, and vigils. Dozens have faced disciplinary action from the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency for voicing their concerns.

Our colleagues in Gaza are nothing short of heroic. At a time where solidarity is needed, they have been left feeling totally abandoned.

We welcome the calls for an immediate ceasefire by the British Medical Association in January, 2024, and the Medical Journal of Australia on Feb 26, 2024.

We urge the AMA and Australian medical colleges to do the same.

This article was first published on The Lancet.

Editorial note: The Lancet Group takes a neutral position with respect to territorial claims in published text.