Medics appeal for ICN readers to sign Open Letter to President Trump on Gaza

Library of Congress photo. Unsplash

Dr Swee Ang, Catholic orthopaedic surgeon and co-founder of Medical Aid for Palestine has joined with other medics in an Open Letter to President Trump, appealing for him to use his power and position to stop the genocide and erasure taking place in Gaza.

Dr Ang plans to deliver the letter to the US Embassy in Beirut when she attends the 43rd anniversary of the Sabra Shatilla Massacre on 16-18 September. She appeal for ICN readers to show their support by signing the letter. (More than 490 have already added their names)

The full letter text follows:

The Honourable Donald J Trump
President of the United States of America

15 September 2025

Dear President Trump

We are a group of doctors and nurses who worked in Beirut's Gaza Hospital throughout the Sabra Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp Massacre in 1982, 43 years ago. We are witnesses and survivors of the massacre which took place under the watch of the Israeli Army

And now, like countless people round the world, we have watched with horror, pain and anguish the relentless livestreamed killing and demolition of Gaza ever since 7 October 2023. By January 2025, the official body count of Gazans killed was at least 50,000, with a further 10,000 under the rubble, of which 17,835 were children, leaving more than 35,000 kids with one or both parents killed.

But while the escalating onslaught seemed unstoppable, almost immediately after your inauguration, the world watched with bated breath the ceasefire you imposed on 19 January 2025. The bombs stopped. Food, medicine and fuel entered beleaguered Gaza, as nearly a million displaced Gazans walked from displacement towards their broken homes. Some called it a Trump-made miracle.

But on 18 March, six weeks later, we watched with utter horror the breakdown of the ceasefire . Attacks on Gaza escalated and since then more than 6,000 were killed, with the blockade of food, water and medicine creating the most brutal man-made famine ever witnessed, killing hundreds more. Partially destroyed buildings have been systematically bombed to the ground so as to expel the entire population of Gaza City and enforce the mass exodus of a million people who were sheltering in those ruins and rubble. These traumatised people were already severely malnourished, and some near death from famine and diseases. Thousands more will die.
The World knows there is only one person who can put an end to this and bring peace to the Middle East. It is with this in mind that we ask you to let Gaza live and give its children a future.

We've seen this before

We survived the Sabra Shatila Massacre in September 1982 - but more than 3,000 unarmed defenceless Palestinian men, women and children and their Lebanese neighbours were slaughtered in 3 days, at the rate of a thousand killed each day. A further 17,000 were abducted and never returned to their families.

It happened under the ceasefire brokered by Phillip Habib, the Middle East Envoy of your predecessor President Ronald Reagan. After a ten-week bombardment of Lebanon by land, air and sea together with a blockade of food, water and medicine, the Palestine Liberation Organisation evacuated to mitigate further loss of lives and destruction of homes, schools, institutions, farms and factories.

The most important part of the ceasefire agreement was the safety of the unarmed civilians left behind guaranteed by the Habib Peace Plan. With this assurance, hundreds of thousands of displaced, traumatised, hungry people and wounded orphans returned to rebuild their broken homes and shattered lives.

We witnessed their complete trust in the protection of the USA and how, despite the brutal incessant bombardment of their homes, the killing and wounding of their loved ones (leaving many children orphaned), the separation of their families through the evacuation, they put their hope in the stable future in their refugee camps under the protection of the USA.

But when, three weeks later, on 15 September 1982, hundreds of Israeli tanks made a massive land invasion breaking the ceasefire, your predecessor did not protect them. The tanks rolled over fleeing human beings, shelling buildings and over-ran Beirut city.

A contingent of tanks headed for Sabra Shatila and hermetically sealed the camp. Under the direct control of the Israeli Army who had made the Kuwaiti Embassy their command-and-control centre, Christian militiamen trained and armed by Israel were sent into the camp to systematically torture, rape and brutally murder the Palestinians and their Lebanese neighbours.

Together with Palestinian and Lebanese medical staff we battled to save the lives of hundreds of severely injured patients - shot at point blank by machine guns. We had to pile the dead bodies on top of each other in the hospital mortuary as there was no space left. Frightened camp people fled into our hospital hoping to seek safety. At night, Israel launched military flares to illuminate the sky so that the atrocity could continue.

The hospital ran out of blood and anaesthetics; it also ran out of food and water for the desperate people seeking shelter. And when news came that the militia working for Israel shot patients, raped and murdered nurses in a neighbouring hospital, they fled. Our medical team stayed on to operate on the wounded and cared for them.

On the morning of 18 September 1982, our hospital was invaded by a group of soldiers who marched us out at machine gun point. They claimed to be Lebanese but answered directly to the Israeli Army. They forced us to leave at gunpoint. We feared for the lives of our patients concerned they would be shot dead once we left. Our patients owed their lives to a Swedish nurse and a medical student who refused to leave and stayed to care for them.

As we were marched out of the hospital, we saw dead bodies and terrorised people rounded up by gun men and awaiting execution. There were large military bulldozers tearing down homes and burying people in the rubble. At one point a desperate young mother broke through the line of machine guns to give her little baby to one of us. In a flash, a gunman ordered her back. Mother and child were gunned down along with the others rounded up by the roadside after we left.

But what does this mean for the here and now?

Mr President, your predecessor failed to protect the Palestinians in 1982 from this crime against humanity.

However, our purpose in writing is not to upset you with the painful events of 43 years ago, but about what is going on in Gaza now.

As we pointed out in our opening paragraphs, Gaza is now dying under a man-made famine with all the famine experts warning that if sufficient food does not get in now, half a million people in Gaza - especially children - will die within a month.

Together with the Israelis, you have set up four feeding points in Gaza to replace the 400 United Nations feeding points. Yes, the number of feeding points has been reduced by 99 percent. Children are now so malnourished that they will not be normal even if they survive. There are stampedes and panic at the feeding points as you cannot reduce the number of feeding points by 99 percent and expect hungry people not to fight and climb over each other to get something for their hungry families.

Moreover, rogue elements are shooting at the hungry crowds. Indeed, some of those working for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation have resigned in view of the horrors they have witnessed. They are men of conscience, who risked their lives to tell the truth.

Mr President - please do not fail the people in Gaza like your predecessor failed the Palestinians in Lebanon. You are the only person in the world who can bring the daily killings in Gaza by bombs, drones and famine to an end. You did it when you forced a six-week ceasefire on 19 January 2025.

The whole world is watching now, but perhaps more important than all - God is watching too. Are you going to rescue Gaza from this catastrophe? Or are you going to let your legacy be the US President who turned away when Gaza is being erased and undergoing genocide?

We await your answer and action

With Very Best Wishes

Dr Ben Alofs, British Doctor, survivor Sabra Shatila Massacre
Dr Swee Ang, Orthopaedic Surgeon, survivor Sabra Shatila Massacre
Ms Ellen Siegel, American Jewish Nurse, survivor Sabra Shatila Massacre

To read the letter, see the other signatories and add your name please click here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdp_HQS3j_Hilvc_G4nhfWChE_BhpBmkKSnRKHA8XejKIYbcQ/viewform