The International Society for Social Pediatrics and Child Health (ISSOP) together with the International Paediatric Society (ISSOP) has issued a statement on Gaza <https://issop.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/ISSOP-IPA-Statement-on-Geno... which makes the following demands:
Toward these ends, we, as an international community of pediatricians and child health professionals, recognize that the Israeli actions in Gaza meet the United Nations definition of “genocide,” and demand the implementation of the following actions.
1.
Condemn and immediately stop the ongoing genocide in Gaza, including an immediate cessation of violence, forced starvation, and withholding of humanitarian aid, which has disproportionately affected children.
2.
Demand all child health professional organizations, associations and institutions apply pressure and take action to end the violence and genocide in Gaza, stop the targeting of medical personnel, hospitals and health care facilities, immediately respond to the medical needs of children in Gaza, and contribute to the rebuilding of the medical infrastructure and social systems necessary to fulfill the rights of children to health care and optimal survival and development.
3.
Call on the international community to demand and immediately implement unfettered access of humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians, especially children—through all regional access points in Egypt and Jordan. Recognize and condemn Israel’s accountability for deliberately blocking such aid.
4.
Demand an end to the international political, economic, corporate and military support of Israel that is perpetuating the cycle of violence and current genocide in Gaza. Silence on the part of all public and private sector stakeholders in the wellbeing of children is also a form of complicity—and must end.
5.
Enable professional colleagues, organizations, associations and institutions to freely and effectively advocate for the rights of Palestinian children—without reprisals.
6.
Acknowledge and respond to the apartheid and ethnic cleansing occurring on the West Bank/Palestine that threatens to expand to the scale of genocide happening in Gaza.
Please can you invite your health professional association to endorse this statement and send confirmation (if possible with a logo) to ISSOP — barbararubio.issop@gmail.com
Tony Waterston
CHIFA profile: Tony Waterston is a retired consultant paediatrician who worked mainly in the community in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. He spent 6 years working in Zambia and Zimbabwe and directed the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health Diploma in Palestinian Child Health teaching programme in the occupied Palestinian territories. He was an Editor of the Journal of Tropical Pediatrics and is on the Executive Committee of the International Society for Social Pediatrics. His academic interests are child poverty, advocacy for child health and children's rights. He was the lead moderator of CHIFA until November 2024. www.chifa.org<http://www.chifa.org>tony.waterston AT newcastle.ac.uk