Gaza war surgeon defeats Lawyers For Israel
The UKLFI is currently under investigation by the Charity Commission.
An eye witness to the genocide in Gaza who was hounded by a pro-Israel pressure group has been completely vindicated by his professional body. UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) tried to get British-Palestinian surgeon Ghassan Abu-Sittah struck off the medical register. The UKLFI is currently under investigation by the Charity Commission.
They took him to the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS), accusing him of antisemitism and supporting terrorism. The General Medical Council (GMC) joined forces with UKLFI but the tribunal found there was no evidence.
The MPTS found that the two bodies had misrepresented two X posts and had not provided accurate translations of an article published in a Lebanese newspaper.
Professor Abu-Sittah has worked with many humanitarian organisations all over the Middle East and went to Gaza within days of Israel’s attacks on Gaza in October 2023. He then gave evidence to the International Criminal Court, which has issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
I was targeted because… I saw the massacre at the Al-Ahli hospital
Speaking to Palestine News, Abu-Sittah said: ‘I was targeted because I was the first eyewitness doctor to come out of Gaza. I saw the massacre at the Al-Ahli hospital.’ UKLFI and the GMC tried – and failed – to have him struck off. His wife and children were harassed by the Metropolitan Police, his Harley Street clinic was targeted. The UKLFI tried to stop him becoming rector of Glasgow University.
The GMC had joined forces with the UKLFI to have him struck off because the pro-Israeli group had threatened the GMC with legal action if they didn’t, he said. His legal costs came to more than a quarter of a million pounds because of ‘political interference from the Israeli embassy‘.
‘It’s the [medical] institutions which have allowed themselves to be weaponised over two years.’ They’ve been forced to align with with governement’s support for Israel, he said, or be faced with legal action by UKLFI. But the doctors coming back from Gaza completely shattered the narrative. The public trust doctors much more than politicians.’
He said all the members of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice had been sanctioned by the United States. ‘I gave evidence to the ICC over five days. But members have had their bank accounts frozen and their Microsoft email accounts cancelled.’ Abu-Sittah will not be returning to Gaza.
‘I’ve been rejected twice [by Israel, which controls all the borders],’ he said, adding that 92 per cent of doctors are not allowed in. But he will return to the American University of Beirut in Lebanon where he is Chair of Conflict Medicine. ‘I will keep treating the kids injured by war and I will keep doing it as long as I possibly can’, he said.
