Hospital Leaders Issue Warnings As Pro-Palestine Health Workers Rally Outside Brigham and Women’s

Updated January 7, 2025, at 1:29 p.m.

Doctors Against Genocide — a coalition of healthcare workers aimed at halting Israel’s war in Gaza — staged a demonstration at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and 14 other medical centers nationwide Monday afternoon.

The event, which was co-sponsored by a list of other pro-Palestine organizations, drew several dozen attendees to the sidewalk in front of Brigham and Women’s — and prompted hospital leaders to send an internal message distancing the Mass General Brigham system from the demonstration.

During the 90-minute event, participants inaugurated the “Kamal Adwan pop-up free clinic” — named after the hospital in northern Gaza that was raided and closed in December by Israeli forces — in a ribbon-cutting.

In a press release announcing Monday’s national campaign, Doctors Against Genocide urged healthcare workers to call in sick in order to attend the protests and “reflect on the immense moral injury of funding a genocide.”

The presidents of several Mass General Brigham-affiliated institutions wrote in an email to hospital leaders — sent Sunday night and obtained by The Crimson — that Doctors Against Genocide had publicized the planned demonstration “without our permission.”

“This event is not sponsored by Mass General Brigham, and it will not be permitted to occur on Brigham and Women’s property or any other MGB property,” the presidents wrote in the email.

“Individuals who appear at such events are prohibited from representing themselves as speaking for Mass General Brigham or any of its member hospitals without express permission to do so,” the email continued. “We will be closely monitoring this situation to ensure that our policies are respected.”

A spokesperson for MGB declined to provide further comment.

Doctors Against Genocide co-founder Karameh Hawash-Kuemmerle — an assistant professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and pediatric neurologist at Boston Children’s Hospital — called in sick and attended Monday’s demonstration to address what she described as the symptoms of witnessing genocide.

“It is my duty as a doctor to speak up against atrocities, and it is my duty to actually be able to advocate for the sanctity of life,” Hawash-Kuemmerle said in an interview after the event.

The only treatment for “the trauma of being exposed to violence on a daily basis is to actually organize and work towards ending it,” she added.

Hawash-Kuemmerle said that Boston Children’s Hospital approved her request for paid sick leave and that her colleagues agreed to cover her shifts in her absence.

The International Court of Justice urged Israel in a January decision to take steps to prevent acts of genocide. The court has not issued a determination on whether Israel’s actions constitute genocide, a process that is expected to take years.

More than 45,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, according to the Gazan health ministry, whose death toll does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

HMS clinical instructor Lara Z. Jirmanus, who is a member of Harvard Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine, spoke at the demonstration.

In her speech, she contrasted the underfunding of healthcare and rising rates of homelessness in the United States with the roughly $18 billion the U.S. has sent in military aid to Israel since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

Other speakers criticized the U.S.’ recently-announced $8 billion weapons sale to Israel and discussed homelessness, hypothermia, and the destruction of hospitals in Gaza to shouts of “shame” from attendees, according to videos of the event.

Jirmanus said in an interview that she sees the destruction in Gaza as a global medical issue.

“Genocide is an assault on our neurobiology,” she said. “We are feeling this deep and tremendous emotional suffering at watching a population of people be eliminated.”

—Staff writer William C. Mao can be reached at william.mao@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @williamcmao.

—Staff writer Veronica H. Paulus can be reached at veronica.paulus@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @VeronicaHPaulus.