Healthcare workers protest Israel's weaponization of hunger and mass starvation in Gaza, in Cape Town, South Africa, on Aug. 7, 2025. South African healthcare workers from both public and private hospitals nationwide took part in the protest on Thursday. (Photo by Shakirah Thebus/Xinhua)
CAPE TOWN, Aug. 7 (Xinhua) -- South African healthcare workers from both public and private hospitals nationwide on Thursday protested Israel's weaponization of hunger and mass starvation in Gaza.
In Western Cape Province, protests took place at or near at least 10 facilities, with several others also scheduled to take place in Gauteng Province.
Feroza Armien, a member of Healthcare Workers 4 Palestine SA, noted that through coordinated lunchtime protests across the country, healthcare workers are sending a message: a genocide is occurring, and it must be condemned.
"The weaponization of healthcare is a tool in this genocide, and that is completely against international humanitarian law. Hospitals and healthcare workers are completely protected in war zones, yet Israel is killing all our healthcare workers -- killing them, targeting them, injuring them, torturing them, kidnapping them, bombing the hospitals. There's absolutely no healthcare available," she said.
"As healthcare professionals, we can't remain silent when our profession is completely under threat and used to kill rather than save lives, which is what our profession stands for," she added.
Armien said the latest tool used in this genocide was starvation. "Mothers can't produce milk because they are so malnourished ... The children are dying; the mothers are dying. Starvation is a really slow, painful, and treacherous death," said the doctor.
The situation in Gaza has reached the worst level of "Phase 5: Famine/Catastrophe," according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.
Earlier, Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, called on Israel to allow the UN and its partners to carry out their work unhindered.
"Before the spread of famine, community-based distribution centers, supported by partners, provided food and assistance to 2 million people, spread across the Gaza Strip. Five months on the ongoing attempts to replace the UN-coordinated response by four Israeli militarized distribution points, hunger has become the latest killer in Gaza," he wrote on social media X.
According to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, more than 60,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks, and 150,000 have been injured. ■
Healthcare workers protest Israel's weaponization of hunger and mass starvation in Gaza, in Cape Town, South Africa, on Aug. 7, 2025. South African healthcare workers from both public and private hospitals nationwide took part in the protest on Thursday. (Photo by Shakirah Thebus/Xinhua)