Philadelphian health workers say: ‘Bombing hospitals is a war crime!’ ( www.workers.org )

Speakers at the park explained that the purpose of the rally was to honor health care worker martyrs, describe the untenable conditions of the hospitals in Gaza, and show how major health care networks in Philadelphia are complicit in the carnage by their silence and even more explicitly by their research funding and initiatives with direct ties to the […] apartheid state.

The rally then took to the street as marchers blocked traffic along a route through the historic area of downtown Philadelphia. The route was planned to call attention to two major health care systems in Philly: Penn Medicine of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.

Chants from the marchers were loud and consistent. People enjoying brunch at outside tables at the many eateries along the way were mostly supportive except for a group of Zionists who shouted obscenities as marchers passed by without engaging.

Marchers stopped first outside of a Penn Medicine hospital building. As marchers carrying banners gathered at the intersection, a Philly nursing student and member of HCW4Pal Philly chapter gave a fiery speech. She inspired the crowd by invoking the revolutionary spirit of Malcolm X, Ho Chi Minh, and Lorraine Hansbury; coincidentally, all three had birthdays on the day of the march.