Israeli Doctors Warn Foreigners Not To Force Feed Palestinian Hunger Strikers
Marwan Barghouti is leading the Palestinian hunger strike in Israeli prisons. Image by getty images
By Naomi Zeveloff May 8, 2017
Israeli physicians are calling on doctors around the world to refuse to come to Israel in order to force feed Palestinian prisoners on a hunger strike.
The Israel Prisons Service is reportedly contemplating bringing foreign doctors to Israel to force feed the strikers since the Israel Medical Association barred its members from doing so, according to news reports.
Physicians For Human Rights Israel called on the World Medical Association to instruct doctors not to come to Israel to fill in when Israeli doctors refuse.
“PHRI calls upon the organization to instruct doctors worldwide not to cooperate with the IPS program to ‘import’ doctors from abroad that will force feed hunger strikers,” the group said in a statement.
PHRI warned against Israel’s actions “blurring the line between security considerations and the patient’s well-being and medical needs.”
The hunger strike began on April 17 when about 1,000 prisoners lead by Marwan Barghouti announced their strike for better prison conditions. So far, Israel has not given in to their demands.
Contact Naomi Zeveloff at [email protected] or on Twitter @naomizeveloff
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
