A Letter to the Public Health Community
Earlier this year, I spent time in Jerusalem and the West Bank as part of a winter solidarity program with Achvat Amim and Rabbis for Human Rights [1, 2]. Solidarity of Nations – Achvat Amim is a movement-building platform that creates frameworks for Palestinians and Israelis to work together toward self-determination for all. Their work supports displaced communities amid acute conflict in the West Bank, centering social justice, equity, feminist advocacy, and community protection at the intersection of global health and human rights. In many ways, this experience was an extension of my daily work as a public health professional—engaging in self-reflection, building relationships, and creating spaces where communities can develop shared goals and strategies for collective liberation [1].
The program consisted of three components: fieldwork days, planting days, and learning days. Fieldwork days involved providing protective presence—joining Palestinians in their communities at their request and leveraging our positionality as Jews, internationals, Israelis, and White or white-passing people to shift power dynamics. Our presence helped reduce the risk of settler or military violence and harassment. We spent these days in Umm Al-Khair, Masafer Yatta located in the South Hebron Hills in the occupied West Bank and Ras al-Ein located north of Jericho in the Jordan Valley in the occupied West Bank.
Ras al-Ein is home to a primarily Bedouin community living under Israeli occupation in Area C, governed by Israeli military and civil administration. Israel controls water access and building permits, which are routinely denied. Aggressive settler outposts—illegal under Israeli and international law—encircle the area and exert constant pressure on Palestinians as part of a broader strategy of forced displacement. During my time there, I witnessed settlers attack Palestinians, steal water, and harass families.
My first night in Ras al-Ein was marked by the sound of gunfire from an Israeli military training outpost miles away. Each time I drifted into sleep, I was jolted awake by rifle fire—rifles likely supplied by the United States. On my last night in Jerusalem, I awoke to air-raid sirens, Israel’s early-warning system for incoming rockets or missiles. As I ran to the designated shelter and heard the booms of interceptions overhead, all I could think about were the more than 600 U.S.-supplied 2,000-pound bombs Israel dropped on Gaza between October 7 and November 17, 2023—bombs that offered no warning to families sleeping in their homes, and for whom no shelters existed [3].
The same voices that have spoken out against President Trump’s assault on reproductive rights were silent when Israeli shells struck Gaza’s largest fertility clinic, destroying 4,000 embryos [4,5]. The same voices that condemned RFK Jr.’s disinformation campaign around vaccines have been silent as Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure has been decimated with American-made weapons. The same voices outraged by the defunding of USAID, the CDC, and U.S. public health systems did not speak when polio was detected in Gaza’s wastewater—a predictable consequence of a collapsed health sector, destroyed sewage and waste systems, and the displacement of 90% of the population [6]. And the same voices that decried the administration’s inhumane treatment of immigrants have remained quiet as people in the West Bank live under conditions reminiscent of Jim Crow: segregation, apartheid, and state-enforced inequality.
But these conditions are not new—and they must be understood as part of a long-standing system of dehumanization sustained not only by oppressive policies, but by the silence of so many in global health. What has changed is that the world is now witnessing a genocide unfold in real time through the livestreams and reporting of Palestinian journalists pleading to be seen as human beings deserving of safety, dignity, and the chance to live and grow old—the very social determinants of health that ground our work.
Perhaps I was naïve to expect leading public health institutions, schools, and professional organizations to speak out as an entire healthcare system was deliberately destroyed. But I refuse to demand anything less from the people and systems that claim to uphold the values of public health, health equity, and social justice. With power comes responsibility, and it is never too late to do what is right—for humanity, and for the Palestinian people.
For as long as I can remember, I have felt the Jewish ancestral struggle for freedom and liberation in my bones. I feel the resilience of a people who have endured thousands of years of exile, oppression, and displacement—and also the profound joy and beauty woven throughout Jewish life. These experiences are what make me proud to be Jewish, and what push me to fight for the liberation of all people. It is not in spite of my Judaism, but because of it, that I feel compelled to speak out. My time in Jerusalem and the West Bank allowed me to witness firsthand the ongoing struggle for self-determination and to stand in solidarity with communities facing the same state-sanctioned violence, oppression, and displacement my ancestors endured.
It has taken nearly a year for me to publicly share what I witnessed in the West Bank. Part of that time was needed to process the violations of human rights I saw up close; part of it was the feeling that no words could ever fully honor the humanity of Palestinians or convey their stories to those willing to listen. I was taught that “Never Again” means Never Again for anyone. Public health has failed to meet this moment. As a collective, we must look inward and remember our purpose: to protect and improve population health. If Palestinians are not afforded the same humanity we extend to communities we serve elsewhere, then what purpose do we serve as public health professionals? We lose our own humanity in that silence.
This moment reflects the public health field’s silence over the past two years in the face of the genocide in Gaza. We must acknowledge our role in allowing this to unfold; greater collective advocacy might have changed where we stand today.
References
Kunichoff D, Mills D, Asi Y, et al. Are Hospitals collateral damage? assessing geospatial proximity of 2000 lb bomb detonations to hospital facilities in the Gaza Strip from October 7 to November 17, 2023. PLOS Global Public Health. 2024;4(10). doi:10.1371/journal.pgph.0003178
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c15npnzpd08o https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/04/world-must-fight-israel-genocide-gaza-like-aparthied-navi-pillay
https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/polio-gaza-public-health-response/
A message from the author:
This past weekend, the world witnessed the senseless murder of 15 people in an antisemitic attack on a Chanukah celebration in Bondi Beach, Australia. Amid this violence, a brave individual put their own life at risk to disarm one of the shooters—an act of courage that may have saved many others and stands as a powerful reminder of how deeply our lives are bound to one another. This tragedy is a sobering reminder of the dark times we are living through. It calls upon us to stand together, to be in community with one another, to care for one another, and to affirm our shared humanity. May their memory be a revolution.
More about the author!
Dari Goldman is a public health professional with over five years of experience leading global and domestic health initiatives focused on health equity, access to care, and reproductive health. She holds a Master of Public Health from the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy, where she specialized in maternal, child, reproductive, and sexual health. Her work spans program implementation, qualitative and quantitative research, and stakeholder engagement across diverse settings, including Puerto Rico, Israel/Palestine, and communities in the U.S. Dari has supported hospitals, health departments, and public health agencies through health inclusion assessments, community needs assessments with a growing focus on health systems improvement.