A few prominent medical professionals latched on to an urgent call to action that was released by the organisation Physicians for Human Rights Israel when they published the one-dimensional article Israeli physicians have reminded us that the care and protection of Gaza’s children is a human obligation – will we heed their call? on the ABC’s Religion and Ethics website.

Doctors in particular are responsible for the protection of human life, and it is their professional obligation to do so, but medical specialists are not legal experts, nor do they necessarily possess political nous.

It should be noted that in the statement by Physicians for Human Rights there was not a single reference to Hamas, who bear the ultimate responsibility for the carnage that has ensued in Gaza following the atrocity they inflicted on Oct 7. I remind you that on Oct 7 pregnant women had their stomachs sliced open with the baby extracted and decapitated.

Returning to the article, there are several assertions there that are very questionable.

A comparison is made with other recent conflicts by referring to a report coming from United Nations Türkiye which put the number of youngsters who had died at 12,300. Between May 6 and May 8, the UN actually cut in half its estimates of the number of women and children killed in Gaza. The estimates were based on Hamas numbers and are a reminder that all fatality estimates coming from that source are unreliable.

Exaggerating a situation to strengthen one’s argument is a sure sign that the argument being proffered lacks credibility. And there is more.

Insinuations of widespread malnutrition and starvation have been rife from those demonstrating a fundamental anti-Israel animus. The UN-linked Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) organisation found no mortality data to prove famine is present, although it stated a ‘high risk of famine’ remains, describing food insecurity situation in Gaza as ‘catastrophic’.

The remark about attacks by Israel on every children’s hospital in Gaza, comparing them to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, totally fails to differentiate between the two conflicts. In Gaza hospitals have been used as operational bases by Hamas, who exploit human shields in their terrorist activities. According to the rules of war hospitals lose their protection from attack in the circumstances where a hospital is being used as a base from which to launch an attack, as a weapons depot, or to hide healthy soldiers and fighters.

The suggestion that Israel was in any way responsible for mass graves at hospitals that were discovered is a malicious one. As the war in Gaza has continued there have been stories like this one that rocketed into the headlines, often trumpeted by the United Nations that has sought any opportunity to lambast Israel. Given the way that Hamas treats its own people there is a strong likelihood that those buried in these mass graves may well have been the victims of Hamas.

To say that Israel has continually ignored with impunity the enabling of the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance further reflects the anti-Israel bias of the article, which seems all too keen to echo the sentiments of those bodies who have a rusted-on anti-Israel agenda like Amnesty International and UNRWA. Those complaining about a need for more humanitarian aid to reach Gazans don’t consider how much of the aid is siphoned off by Hamas to use for its own nefarious purposes.

Israel has just agreed for a temporary pause in the fighting in Gaza to enable children there to be vaccinated against polio to avoid it spreading across the young population in Gaza.

The assertion that ‘Australia still claims a “warm and close” relationship with Israel’ is not shared by the Jewish community. The appointment of Special Adviser to the Australian Government Mark Binskin to investigate Israel’s response to the Israel Defence Forces strikes is a case in point, demonstrating the loss of trust between the two nations. Furthermore, the Australian government’s handling of an explosion of antisemitism in Australia following Oct 7 demonstrates a total failure by Australia to recognise the real and ever-present terror threat faced by Israel.

The article has stated that ‘severe consequences for ongoing Israeli crimes are needed’. This shows blame being apportioned to Israel for the suffering in Gaza and a failure to acknowledge that Israel is in the throes of defending itself from any further murderous actions by Hamas by endeavouring to eliminate the proscribed terrorist organisation Hamas militarily.

Sanctions against several Israeli settlers have been welcomed by the malevolent article, which does not seem bothered that the Palestinian Authority, which is earmarked to take over some responsibilities in Gaza after Hamas has been removed from power, pays rewards to those who murder Israelis via their infamous pay-for-slay policy.

In conclusion, I would like to relate how a friend of mine, who has worked for many years in international medical assistance and humanitarian programs was part of an effort to send lifesaving supplies to children in Gaza late last year through Egypt. Unfortunately, the Egyptian authorities were unresponsive. This seems to reflect the hatred between the Egyptian government and Hamas, which is essentially a Muslim Brotherhood organisation, which the Egyptian government despises and suppresses.

Historically Israelis have been at the forefront to help alleviate the misery in Gaza. Before Oct 7 Road to Recovery, an Israeli charity that was established in 2010, was connecting Israeli volunteers with Palestinians- mostly children – in need of transportation to doctor’s appointments and other medical care within Israel.

In the days following Oct 7 I interviewed Yael Noy, who leads the organisation Road to Recovery, who was devastated by what had just happened with many of her volunteers having been slaughtered or taken as hostages.

If these one-sided purveyors of criticism of Israel would really like to stop the carnage in Gaza, why don’t they call for Hamas to surrender unconditionally and release the hostages that these vicious terrorists have been holding as bartering chips? In the meantime, Hamas continues to reveal that it intends to kill Jews if given any opportunity.

For the past ten years David Schulberg has been a radio presenter of ‘The Israel Connexion’, a weekly radio show on J-AIR Community Radio in Melbourne, having previously been very active in Israel advocacy. His radio show has just been syndicated to 2TripleO in Sydney and he has established a world-wide audience on the internet.