American Nurse on Hunger Strike for Gaza

To the professional medical and nursing organizations, hospitals and schools, I ask: Where are you?

My name is Jennifer Koonings and I am a nurse practitioner in the state of New York. I have watched in absolute horror for the past eight months as the United States and Israel commits a genocide in my name with the American people’s tax dollars.

The Biden administration continues to write a blank check for a genocidal state to carry out mass murder every single day while Americans at home suffer from poverty, homelessness, poor health care, student loan debt and a crumbling infrastructure.

As a healthcare worker who has dedicated my life to public service and caring for the most vulnerable, my heart has been broken every single day seeing massacre after massacre. The immeasurable trauma that children in Gaza are experiencing is horrifying and completely unjustifiable. Children’s brains and bodies are fragile and still growing, and they are being starved, bombed and traumatized beyond belief.

The vindictive cruelty that has been unleashed on healthcare facilities and healthcare workers trying to care for the victims of this US/Israeli genocide is sickening. Over 500 healthcare workers have been killed so far. They have been bombed, kidnapped, tortured and executed.

To the professional medical and nursing organizations, hospitals and schools, I ask: Where are you? Will you continue to sit in silence as your colleagues abroad get massacred? As hospitals get bombed? As critically injured patients continue to be forced to relocate over and over again? As health workers are forced to treat patients on dirty floors with no supplies? As children are undergoing limb amputations and women are undergoing cesarean sections without anesthesia? At this point, silence is complicity.

Eight months of this genocide, the barbarity only continues to escalate. That’s why I have made the decision to start a hunger strike in solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza. The bravery, courage and dedication of the healthcare workers in Gaza trying to care for their people is beyond admirable.

As the United States continues to supply Israel with weapons, I want to show-in words and deeds-how strongly I condemn my government and so-called political “leaders” for their unimaginable cruelty.

Shame on this administration for continuing a genocide and defying your constituents, who are demanding accountability and justice. We do not consent to your genocide!

Shame on this administration for villainizing our movement as we simply demand an end to the bloodshed! We are the peacemakers and your attempts to shame and discredit us for begging you to stop murdering babies is despicable!

We demand an end to the genocide! Stop the killing and use our tax dollars to care for the American people, who so desperately need help. Instead of sending billions upon billions abroad to exterminate an indigenous population in Gaza that has been under a complete siege for 17 years, we need to fund public health, education, housing and other social services.

As a healthcare worker, I say stop the genocide.
Fund healthcare.
Choose life.

- Jennifer Koonings PMHNP

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If you would like to support Jen, she will be outside the White House from 1pm-7pm.