#FreeShathaOdeh

A Webinar of Protest, A Webinar for Understanding
Organized by War & Conflict Thematic Group
For Peoples Health Movement

7 August, 2PM UTC (4PM Geneva time)

The Palestine Experience: Pearls and Perils of Health Work in Areas of Conflict:

The Palestine experience

The Peoples Health Movement has had a long history of working in solidarity with the Palestinian people. PHM recognizes that the struggle for national liberation and freedom are inseparable from the struggle for health. Further the PHM has championed and worked for the right to health and healthcare as a priority for contexts where there is war and conflict and millions of people are displaced from homes.

The recent arrest and incarceration of one of PHMs leaders Ms Shatha Odeh, who has been heading one of the largest health programmes for Palestinian people, creates a new urgency for international solidarity of health and human rights movements for demanding an end to this illegal and immoral incarceration, and to the disruption by Israeli forces of health and relief work that her organization- UWC has been spearheading. (see PHM statement & letter to WHO-DG )

Even as the Covid-19 pandemic rages, there has been an increase of Israel’s ferocious attacks on Palestinian territories and continuing crimes against humanity and newer forms of apartheid- like in the availability of vaccine! Over the years, health programs and health workers have scaled up their response to the dire effects of Israel’s occupation on people’s health care. And attacks on health care are now a feature of Israel’s warfare.

While so much of Palestine’s history has involved bloodshed, displacement, and instability, the struggle to Free Palestine has nevertheless been constant across its territories, and its citizens dispersed in several regions and democratic forces across the globe. There is a need in this hour of crisis to reiterate and renew the understanding and solidarity built in the past, once again among this generation of health workers, peoples and countries globally.

At the end of the webinar, the participants will 1) understand the root of the longstanding struggle of the Palestinians 2) learn and appreciate the pearls and perils of health work in areas of conflict and 3) draw more solidarity to the current plight of the Palestinians and esp its health workers.

Webcast Details

Date: 7 August, 2021----------------- 2PM UTC (4PM Geneva time)

Zoom Link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88586487764?pwd=NjJ2UTJhbFZYSWdUOVFYdlBFeEVNQT09

The event will be telecast live on PHM Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/peopleshealthmovement

Program Details

Moderator:

Dr Hani Serag, PHM

Speakers:

• AbdulMuhsen AbuFannouneh (Husband)

• Shirin AbuFannouneh (Daughter)

• Atty Sahar Francis (Lawyer)

• Abed Ghazal: Health Work Committees

• Akshaya Kumar: Director; Crisis Advocacy & Special Rights, Human Rights Watch

• Dr Mustafa Barghoti: Palestinian National Initiative Movement

• Dr Alice Rothchild: Jewish Voice for Peace-Health Advisory Council

• Dr Samer Jabbour: Global Alliance for War, Conflict, and Health

Solidarity messages

• Ayman Youssef for US group of medical students

• Viva Salud

• LatAm Solidarity group

• Philippine Palestine Friendship Association