MN: Pro-Palestine rally vows solidarity with Gaza healthcare workers
St. Paul, MN – Women Against Military Madness (WAMM) held their weekly Free Palestine Rally with 30 community members joining them. It was stressed that Israel’s genocide is still raging in Palestine.
However, the people are still resisting in many ways. This week we saw many healthcare workers call out at their workplaces and at many hospitals with the theme “Sick of genocide.” In many cities in the U.S., they held press conferences stating they can no longer sit back; they spoke out about the horrors Palestinians face in Gaza with extraordinarily little or no medical help. The situation is beyond dire. WAMM’s rally focused on Gaza’s healthcare crisis.
Sarah Martin, member of WAMM and a retired nurse who worked at Regions Hospital, told the crowd, “I receive a public employee’s pension. It is managed by the SBI [State Board of Investment] which has billions of dollars invested in financial entities and companies carrying out the genocide in Gaza. It sickens me that the money I earn healing people is being used to murder and injure Palestinians by the tens if not hundreds of thousands.”
The people at the rally, layered up in Minnesota’s winter cold weather, held signs reading, “Free Palestine,” “Stop the bombing of Gaza,” “End U.S. aid to Israel” and “Divest MN from apartheid Israel.”
Martin laid out some horrifying statistics highlighting why the healthcare in Gaza is disastrous, “Per The Lancet journal, since October 7, 2023, 46,000 people, including children, were martyred.” She added, “In the first week of January 2025, 395 killed, 936 injuries, 74 children killed and now eight newborn babies have died from hypothermia.”
Martin spoke of the destruction of Kamal Adwan and Indonesian hospitals in the north. “Al Adwa hospital is the last one operating in the north and only just barely and with no electricity but continues to provide treatment even though there is no fuel and there is severe shortage of medical supplies and medicines. There are almost no fuel reserves because little is getting through due to Israeli restrictions. This means incubators, O2 generators and refrigeration for medicines are barely functioning.”
As the rally continued, people heard the continuous honks from cars, buses and trucks as they drove by. People happily waved back to acknowledge their support. As they passed, drivers could see a banner tied between two light poles saying, “Don’t look away, keep resisting genocide” with a Palestine flag in the background. While one car was stopped at a red light, the driver lay on their horn until the light turned green.
Haley Mosely, an emergency medical technician, thinks of Palestine at every point during the shift, and said to the crowd, “Every time I step into an ambulance, I see those images from Palestine in my head. I see the burned, damaged ambulances, ambulances turned into shrapnel, the volunteers rushing to pull people out of the rubble, videos of medics giving compressions on stretchers while being pushed through entrances and hallways full of bleeding and crying people. The patients lying on the floor, the children receiving IVs and fluids without a bed. The emaciated. The crushed. The bleeding. The dying. The dead.”
Mosely continued, “Our hospitals here are overwhelmed. The times I have brought a patient to the emergency department with a head wound, wearing a c-collar, and I have to take them to the lobby to wait – because there are no beds available – I think of Palestine. Of the chaos. The rows of children lining the hallways. I think of them and I feel sick. What Israel is doing – with our tax dollars – is sick, it's demented, it's deranged. The targeting of healthcare is devastating. Israel and its defenders have tried to justify the unjustifiable. The killing of patients. The kidnapping of doctors. The shooting of people seeking refuge in hospitals. The bombings of maternity wards.”
Mosley stressed to the rally, “It is critical that we are not silent. That we as medical professionals stand up and speak out and get involved in stopping this genocide. If we care about our communities and our patients here, we must care about Palestine. Free Palestine! From the river to the sea – Palestine will be free!”
In between speeches, the crowd at the intersection of Summit and Snelling Avenues chanted, “Free free Palestine!” “Netanyahu, you can’t hide! We charge you with genocide!” “Gaza must have food and water! Israel, Israel stop the slaughter!”
Sylvia Schwarz, member of the MN BDS Community, stated, “How is it that hundreds of doctors and medical workers have been assassinated or incarcerated without an outcry from this country’s medical institutions? How is it that hundreds of journalists have been assassinated without an outcry from international media organizations? So, because I am so depressed, I want to address this speech to those people over there, those counter-protesters who think that supporting genocide is the way to show support for Israel.”
Schwartz ended by stating, “Even though many people can’t believe the genocide of the Palestine people of Gaza still is happening and many are sad, depressed and righteously angry, but they will never be deterred.” WAMM’s Middle East Committee and Palestine Solidarity Committee pledged to come to the corner “every Friday not only because it's the right thing to do but because their fight is our fight.”