Panel discussion: Witnessing a Genocide

An opportunity to hear first-hand testimony about the genocide in Gaza from healthcare professionals, legal experts, and journalists. Discussion points will include attacks on healthcare, attacks on civilians seeking aid at the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites and the attacks on press freedom.

The panel will provide the latest humanitarian update from medical staff in Gaza.

Royal Television Society award-winning journalist Sohail Rahman has been presenting and reporting the news from around the world for more than three decades at networks including ITV, the BBC, CNN and Channel 4. Sohail was a Senior News Anchor and Correspondent at Al Jazeera in Doha for twenty years, covering Gaza and the Middle East extensively. Fluent in five South Asian languages, he also reported from New Delhi and Kuala Lumpur for the channel and was nominated for an Emmy. On-air throughout the events following 07 October 2023, Sohail has brought the horrors of the unfolding genocide to a global audience.

Natalie Roberts is the Executive Director of Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in the UK. An emergency doctor from North Wales, Natalie joined MSF in 2012 and worked in zones of conflict and crisis across Africa, Asia and the Middle East, including in Syria, Yemen, Ukraine and the Central African Republic. In 2016 she became Head of Emergency Operations for MSF in Paris, overseeing MSF’s emergency response activities worldwide, including throughout the Great March of Return protests in Gaza when MSF provided care to thousands of Palestinians who had been shot by the Israeli military. Natalie holds a medical degree from Cambridge University and Imperial College London and a master’s degree in the political economy of violence, conflict and development from SOAS.

Caroline Willemen has been working as Project Coordinator for MSF since 2016. She has worked in different contexts, including Afghanistan, Greece, Search and Rescue operations, Syria, Lebanon and the West Bank. She returned end of August from Gaza, where she coordinated activities in Gaza City for 2 months.

Sacha Deshmukh is the Chief Executive of Amnesty International UK. He is an expert on global human rights and regularly responds to major crises, including those in Gaza and Ukraine, as well as issues relating to UK foreign policy and human rights. In the UK, Sacha is a prominent voice on a broad and growing range of human rights challenges from the erosion of the long-established right to protest, to the ongoing mistreatment of refugees and people seeking asylum. He also speaks out on the UK’s failure to uphold basic rights in everyday areas such as housing, social security, and LGBTQ+ rights. Sacha’s career in the charity sector spans more than 25 years. Before joining Amnesty UK in 2021, he held senior roles at Stonewall, Citizens Advice, War Child, and Unicef UK.

Wael al-Dahdouh, Palestinian journalist and Al Jazeera’s Gaza Bureau Chief, has faced unimaginable personal loss while reporting. During the Gaza war, his wife, seven-year-old daughter, 16-year-old son, and nine other relatives were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the Nuseirat refugee camp on 25 October 2023. On 15 December, al-Dahdouh and his cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa were targeted by an Israeli missile while covering the Haifa School airstrike; he was injured, and Abu Daqqa killed. Despite this, he returned to reporting. In January 2024, his son Hamza was killed. His courage earned him the 2024 John Aubuchon Press Freedom Award.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) translates to ‘doctors without borders’. We provide medical assistance to people affected by conflict, epidemics, disasters, or exclusion from healthcare. Our teams are made up of tens of thousands of professionals working in health and medical care, logistics, administration, communications, skilled trades – all bound together by our charter and serving people in need. Our actions are guided by medical ethics and the principles of impartiality, independence, and neutrality. We are a non-profit, self-governed, member-based organisation.

MSF was founded in 1971 in Paris by a group of journalists and doctors. Today, we are a worldwide movement of over 67,000 people.