Some 40 celebrities, as well as about 10 nonprofits and another 10 Palestinian medical personnel, signed a letter published Monday accusing Israel of deliberately targeting medical facilities in Gaza and the West Bank and urging an end to all restrictions on the entry of aid.
The three-page letter alleges that “the government of Israel has deliberately inflicted conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of Palestinians in Gaza” — a formulation lifted from the Genocide Convention — and that it has targeted civilians and medical personnel, allegations that Israel strenuously denies.
The letter will be delivered to UK and EU lawmakers in meetings this week, according to The Guardian.
The letter claims that Israel “has systematically undermined Gaza’s healthcare system for more than two decades; since October 2023, the healthcare system has been under direct attack.”
At no point does the letter mention the Hamas terror group, its October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, or the 251 hostages kidnapped from Israel on that day, some of whom were held in Gaza for two years prior to the recent ceasefire.
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The letter says that, despite the ceasefire, “Israeli forces carry out daily attacks in Gaza” and “the Israeli government continues to block humanitarian assistance and prevent essential medical supplies and personnel from entering Gaza at the scale required.”
Palestinians mourn the death of Palestinians killed in an Israeli airstrike outside the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, January 12, 2026. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)
Israel denies deliberately targeting civilians, and notes that terror groups intentionally operate from within sensitive areas, including hospitals.
Israel also says that its restrictions and inspections of humanitarian aid entering the Strip are necessary to prevent outright arms smuggling as well as the entry of dual-use items that can be used by combatants for attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians.
In March 2024, in a departure from its earlier policy, Israel blocked all humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, claiming there was enough already accumulated to meet the population’s needs, and that further aid would bolster Hamas.
Jerusalem made an about-face two months later, amid international outcry over several images of emaciated children and reports of famine from nonprofit groups, which Israel contested.
A truck loaded with humanitarian aid travels along Salah al-Din Road in the central Gaza Strip, near Deir al-Balah, on November 9, 2025. (Eyad Baba/AFP)
The letter published Monday was signed by two Israeli NGOs, B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights – Israel. Both groups have already accused Israel of genocide in Gaza.
It was also signed by international groups including Human Rights Watch and Oxfam.
Among its celebrity signatories were the actors Joaquin Phoenix, Peter Capaldi, and Cynthia Nixon, as well as comedian Ilana Glazer and Rage Against the Machine frontman Tom Morello.
The letter’s first-listed signatory is Wesam Hamada. She is the mother of Hind Rajab, a six-year-old girl allegedly killed by Israeli forces in Gaza in January 2024, who pleaded on the phone for an ambulance that never arrived and was found dead days later.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society has accused Israel of deliberately targeting the ambulance it sent to rescue Rajab. The Israel Defense Forces has denied the allegation, and initially claimed that no troops were in the area when Rajab was killed, though this latter claim was undercut by subsequent reporting.
6-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab (Family handout via AFP)
The letter demands “the immediate restoration of access to movement between Gaza and the West Bank including East Jerusalem” as part of the Palestinian health care system; “Immediate, unconditional, unhindered and sustained humanitarian access” to the territories; the release of “arbitrarily detained” medical and aid personnel; and “accountability” for crimes committed.
The war in Gaza started October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists invaded southern Israel from the Strip, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, amid acts of brutality and sexual assault. Israel’s subsequent offensive had the stated goals of returning the hostages, destroying Hamas’s military and governing capacities, and preventing Gaza from posing a future threat to Israel.
The fighting mostly stopped in October 2025 with a US-brokered ceasefire that mandated the release of all remaining hostages, though the body of one deceased hostage, Police Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, remains in the Strip. The truce was envisioned by Washington as the first stage of a larger plan, which would ultimately see Hamas’s disarmament, Gaza’s demilitarization, and a full Israeli withdrawal from the Strip, save for a buffer zone along its perimeter. The plan’s implementation has stalled.
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