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Chicago-Based Doctors Returning From Gaza Call for Cease-Fire Amid Civilian Deaths

Chicago-area resident Rajaa Alrayyes is joined by health care workers during a press conference at CAIR-Chicago in the Loop on October 2, 2024. (WTTW News)Chicago-area resident Rajaa Alrayyes is joined by health care workers during a press conference at CAIR-Chicago in the Loop on October 2, 2024. (WTTW News)

Chicago-based health care workers who provided humanitarian aid in Gaza gathered Wednesday to raise awareness around the ongoing crisis in Palestine and the deaths of civilians.

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The news conference comes amid Israel’s war in the region against Hamas and Hezbollah, which has now escalated into Lebanon. It’s been nearly a year since a Hamas-led attack in Israel on Oct. 7 killed around 1,200 people and led to the kidnapping of around 250 others.

Since Oct. 7, more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

“What we have seen over the last year has been a total 360-degree assault on life in Gaza,” said Dr. Thaer Ahmad, who spent three weeks working at a hospital in Gaza earlier this year. “People are not able to earn a living. Children are not able to go to school. People are not able to move from area to area unless they’re running away from bombs.”

Chicago-area resident Rajaa Alrayyes said over 200 members of her family across three generations were killed in Gaza. Among those killed were Alrayyes’ cousins, who she said were her childhood best friends.

“It has been almost a year since Israel killed my uncle, his wife, and my cousins,” Alrayyes said, who also has family in Lebanon. “Their bodies are still buried under the rubble because Israel won’t allow us to give them a proper burial.”

Dr. Tammy AbuGhnaim, an emergency physician who worked at a hospital in Gaza most recently in August, said international law is being violated by targeting and killing children.

“During my time in Gaza, I have witnessed war crimes,” AbuGhnaim said. “I have witnessed Israel deliberately target children. I have witnessed and treated children who have come into the emergency department after being shot by Israeli forces.”

AbuGhnaim also called out the dehumanization of Palestinians in the last year by elected officials, which she said contributes to the deaths of children in Palestine, in addition to contributing to the killing of 6-year-old Palestinian American Wadea Al-Fayoume in Plainfield.

The Wednesday news conference was organized by CAIR-Chicago, a nonprofit civil rights organization with a stated mission of working for the equality of Muslim Americans through defending civil liberties and fighting Islamophobia.

“I hope that there is the political will that is necessary to establish a ceas-efire,” Ahmad said. “That the Gazan people, the people of Palestine are able to have the dignity to be able to move on with their lives and start the very necessary rebuild.”

The United Nations Security Council met for an emergency meeting Wednesday to address the escalating conflict after Iran launched nearly 200 missiles into Israel in what Iran’s ambassador to the U.N. called a deterrent to further violence. Israel’s ambassador called it an “unprecedented act of aggression.”

The Associated Press contributed.

Contact Eunice Alpasan: @eunicealpasan | 773-509-5362 | [email protected]


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