Dr. Lama Rimawi, is a US based pediatrician and a member of the Sisterhood’s Board of Trustees. Here, she shares her heartfelt plea with the Sisterhood.
Dear Sisters,
I believe now is the time to stand up. Now is the time to call our sisters into action. Not the regular actions that we have advocated for in the past but for real and immediate action.
Our mission says “Together we commit to standing up for one another, educating one another about our faith and cultural practices, engaging in social justice action, and working to end acts of hate for all human beings.”
The situation in Gaza is desperate. I believe we are talking about days not weeks in terms of how much time we have before hundreds of thousands of people will die.
I believe we are their only hope.
Please, I beg of you, my dear sisters, stand up.
Make the personal connections that need to be made to mobilize and to stand up for humanity. If you know congressional representatives, senators or other elected officials personally, please ask them to make a call, a personal appeal to help. If you know rabbis, priests, imams or other people in your communities that can spread the word, please talk to them, call them, meet with them.
I know that we are all in a place of extreme suffering, pain and emotion. The loss of innocent lives is never acceptable whether it is Israeli or Palestinian. I hope the rest of the hostages are released as soon as possible. They did not deserve for this to happen to them.
However, at this moment, there are two million Palestinians that are being denied sufficient food, water, medicines, humanitarian access, shelter and safety. One million of them are children. All these people should not be punished for a crime that Hamas committed.
I received word from one of my physician colleagues.
Doctors are operating without electricity, without pain medicines, without clean water. They are trying to save lives while their own families and children are being starved, dehydrated, killed.
I believe we all have the right to life and liberty. I don’t believe we, or any human, has the right to take away innocent people’s right to life and liberty, no matter what.
We don’t have to agree on the history or who started what. It is time to stand up. It is time to act.
We must act now or the blood of the children that are dying will be on our hands.
The situation in Gaza is catastrophic.
Millions of children and families are without sufficient water, food, medicines, electricity, millions are without protection. We must lift up their voices.
Our own president won’t say the word “ceasefire”, won’t stand up for the innocent.
Let us be the ones that say those words. Let us be the ones that stand up for those that cannot be heard, together.
I beg you to help the Palestinian people, my people. We cannot do this alone. We cannot save our own people. We need you, your compassion, your strength, your humanity.
Let’s start making calls, ask people to reach out to do anything and everything, to write articles, call news agencies, shout from the rooftops. We must do something now or it will be too late. If we can save even one life, it would be worth it.
We are all grieving but this cannot wait. We must act now. Please.