WASHINGTON

Doctors Against Genocide (DAG) urged the Trump administration on Thursday to reverse course and stop enabling a humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip.

Doctors, nurses and other medical professionals representing the global coalition of health care workers, gathered at different locations in Washington, DC, including Capitol Hill, to demand an end to the Israeli war in the besieged enclave.

The group has been meeting monthly with members of Congress to push for a change in the American position on the Palestinian cause. As reports of mass hunger, collapsed hospitals and widespread devastation in Gaza escalate, however, the group said an emergency news conference this week could not wait.

"I'm one of the members of Doctors Against Genocide. It's a group of health care providers who advocate for Gaza and the Palestinian cause, and right now, today, it was an urgent meeting for us to have a press conference because of the starvation that's going on in Gaza," Ashraf Abou El-Ezz, an anesthesiologist from the state of Indiana, told Anadolu.

Abou El-Ezz said the group meets at least once a month in Congress with representatives to try to explain to them the situation in Gaza.

"We do understand that the US is complicit in this kind of starvation and genocide that's happening, and we are trying to explain to them and to talk to them about changing their position regarding the Palestinian cause," he said.

Abou El-Ezz urged President Donald Trump to act now.

"Today, my message to President Trump is that to stop the genocide now, not tomorrow. People are dying. Children are starving. Hospitals are destroyed, doctors are being killed, and the situation is getting more and more urgent by the minutes, not by days. And we have to move fast because every day costs hundreds of lives," he said.

Roxana Samimi, an infectious disease physician, told the Turkish news agency that the group has been denouncing the genocide for almost two years.

She said what is happening in Palestine is "just unacceptable."

"We're health care workers. We're here to heal. And we're seeing not only our tax dollars going to fund a genocide. We're seeing doctors abducted. Kids starve and starvation is being weaponized as a tool. We need to really stop funding this genocide today.

"That America needs to be on the right side of history," she added, as she demanded the Trump administration act now.

"We need to act today. Let the food in. Let aid in. Stop funding the genocide. Stop our money going there ... stop right now," she said.

'Send bread, not bombs'

Patrick Fadden, a doctor of internal medicine, said the group advocates for stopping the genocide.

Asked about his message to the Trump administration, Fadden said: "I think it's very clear: Send bread, not bombs."

"It's not that they don't have the resources to feed the starving population in Gaza. It's just that the resources are ... outside the borders, and that would take one signature from ... our government to stop that, and to feed ... hundreds of thousands of starving Palestinians," he said.

He told Anadolu that he has not served in Gaza, but he would like to go there.

"I've had colleagues that have been over there before the genocide and during the genocide and I think as a physician, we are trained to help those in need ... to cure disease, to promote wellness," said Fadden.

He said there is no food, no water, no electricity, health care is being dismantled, hospitals are being bombed, physicians and health care workers are being targeted and murdered.

"We're here just to say: ‘Stop, stop.’ Open the borders. Send the bread, not the bombs," he added.

The group has also protested in front of the Egyptian Embassy, the Israeli Embassy, and in Lafayette Park in front of the White House to raise their voices.

Israel has killed more than 59,500 Palestinians, most of them women and children, in Gaza since October 2023. The military campaign has devastated the enclave, collapsed the health system, and led to severe food shortages.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.