Healthcare Workers for Palestine (HCW4P): What You Need to Know

Healthcare Workers for Palestine (HCW4P) is a loose U.S.-based network of anti-Zionist healthcare professionals and students who promote extreme anti-Israel beliefs that go far beyond opposing Israeli government policies. These beliefs include calls to eradicate Zionism, the glorification of terror, and the use of antisemitic tropes. The group’s messaging engages in the denial of Israel’s right to exist, advocates for the intimidation and harassment of “Zionists,” and endorses violence against Israel and Israelis.

Since its formation following the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack, HCW4P has established itself as an influential actor in the U.S. anti-Israel movement, frequently collaborating with other prominent anti-Israel groups and activists nationwide.

Background

Founding and Structure

HCW4P says it formed its network “in the wake of Al-Aqsa Flood to mobilize healthcare workers.” Al-Aqsa Flood is Hamas’s name for its horrific terror massacre across southern Israel on October 7, 2023. It claims to have thousands of members as of January 2025 and more than 30 geographically organized local chapters, led by a national coordinating group.

Certain chapters — such as New York, Philadelphia, and others — have a particularly notable record of engaging in problematic rhetoric, including justifying and even glorifying the actions and leaders of terror organizations.

Although each local chapter's methods and messaging vary greatly, many have aligned themselves with some of the most extreme domestic anti-Israel organizations, such as Within Our Lifetime (WOL), Al-Awda, the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG) and Samidoun, the latter of which, in October 2024, was designated by the U.S. and Canada as a “sham charity” operating as a fundraising front of U.S.-designated terror group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

This alignment also holds for the national HCW4P movement.

HCW4P chapters raise funds through various platforms, including Venmo, Cash App, and crowdfunding sites like Donorbox and Open Collective. Chapters have also frequently run fundraisers for special projects, such as one by the Philadelphia chapter to purchase SIM cards for Palestinians in Gaza.

HCW4P is distinct from similarly named organizations in the UK and Ireland.

Ideology

The national HCW4P organization and local chapters have regularly engaged in explicit praise and whitewashing of U.S.-designated terrorist organizations and their leaders, such as Hamas, the PFLP and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).

The network has also spread conspiracy theories, including one that accuses Israel of stealing Palestinian organs — unfounded claims that draw on antisemitic tropes dating back to the medieval period.

The organization has consistently used language suggesting it does not believe Israel has the right to exist, referring to the state as “Israel” in quotation marks (a rhetorical tactic commonly used by some anti-Israel activists to undermine the state’s legitimacy) or as “the Zionist entity” (a phrase commonly used by Hamas, Hezbollah and other terror groups, as well as extreme anti-Israel organizations, to signify denial of its right to exist).

HCW4P’s stated goals include “total Palestinian liberation” and “an end to…Zionism.” It takes an extreme position on Israel and peace, writing in response to the January 2025 Israel-Hamas ceasefire, for example, that “our struggle continues so long as the Zionist project stands,” and that its members “will continue agitating in our workplaces and in the streets until every inch of Palestine is liberated.”

HCW4P emphasized this belief again in a March 2025 Instagram post, which asserted that Zionism, the movement for Jewish self-determination in their homeland of Israel, “must be eradicated,” and that “only when its foundation is obliterated, and Palestine is fully liberated from the river to the sea can peace even begin to be imagined.”

The phrase “from the river to the sea” has commonly been used within the anti-Israel movement to call for the conquest and erasure of all of Israel.

Activities

HCW4P has led targeted campaigns against “Zionist” and Israeli individuals in the medical field, attempting to pressure healthcare organizations to cancel events featuring Israeli speakers. HCW4P also signed onto an April 2024 letter demanding the deplatforming of “Zionists” in healthcare. The letter called on healthcare establishments and others to “reject all forms of imperialism, settler colonialism, and zionism [sic] as fundamentally in conflict with the four pillars of reproductive justice,” and demanded that members of the field “do not invite, welcome, or platform zionist [sic] speakers.”

HCW4P’s activities also include organizing anti-Israel protests, rallies and die-ins; publishing and distributing articles; and leading campaigns and boycotts. Notably, the group led a campaign encouraging supporters to request that pharmacies cease carrying products by Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva. The group also attempted to depose a member of the board of the prominent Massachusetts hospital system Mass General Brigham (MGB) as part of a campaign to get MGB to divest “from its connections to the genocide of Palestinians and the war industry.”

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A sign reading “End the Zionist grip on healthcare,” seen at a Cambridge, MA, rally co-sponsored by HCW4P Boston, JVP Boston, and Massachusetts Peace Action on June 17, 2025. 

In a toolkit published in partnership with the Palestinian Youth Movement and the Shut It Down for Palestine coalition, the group outlines a variety of tactics for protests, ranging from birddogging — a form of aggressive heckling — to sit-ins, blockades and walk-outs. Suggested chants include, “Zionism has got to go!”; “Smash the Zionist settler state”; and “No, no normalization // We demand full liberation.”

Collaboration with Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG)

In January 2025, 13 HCW4P chapters (Alaska, Bay Area, Boston, Chicago, Connecticut, Los Angeles, Maine, New Orleans, New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Sacramento and San Diego) collaborated with Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG) — an extreme anti-Israel group that has supported violence and terror — to co-author a special “Healthcare Edition” of WAWOG’s signature anti-Israel publication, “The New York (War) Crimes.”

This edition included an article written by HCW4P expressing admiration for the founders of three U.S.-designated terrorist organizations — George Habash of the PFLP, Fathi Shaqaqi of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and Abdalaziz Al-Rantisi of Hamas. The article made special note of the fact that the three men were pediatricians before becoming founding members of terrorist groups and framed them as “[representing] a global movement of ‘revolutionary medicine.’” It stated that these three terrorist founders “must be understood as patriots who defended the health, offspring, and future of the Palestinian social body,” and disturbingly and falsely claimed that they were in fact advocates for peace. Hamas, for example, led a suicide bombing campaign alongside PIJ primarily against Israeli civilian targets in opposition to the Oslo peace process in the 1990s.

Additionally, “The New York (War) Crimes” Healthcare Edition further glorified terror leaders, reprinting an interview with Habash, extolling PFLP terrorist and plane hijacker Leila Khaled as a “legendary resistance fighter,” and calling into question the legitimacy of designating groups like Hezbollah as terrorist organizations.

The publication also listed the home addresses of U.S.-based executives of an Israeli defense manufacturer, calling them “The Houses That Death Built.”

A joint WAWOG-HCW4P Instagram post announcing their healthcare edition of the publication explicitly aligned healthcare workers in Gaza with “armed resistance” against Israel, a term often used to euphemistically refer to terrorist groups like Hamas. The post claimed that “armed resistance is the first line of defense against the genocidal project. The healthcare system is the last […] ‘As long as Palestinians are kept alive, whether by armed fighter or by healthcare worker,’ our editors write, ‘the Zionist project cannot win.’”

HCW4P at the national and local levels assisted with printing and distributing “The New York (War) Crimes” Healthcare Edition, and staged several public readings, thereby further disseminating this pro-terror messaging.

Pro-Terror Anti-Israel Protest Activity

Protests organized by HCW4P have frequently featured support for violence and U.S.-designated terrorist organizations.

On March 29, 2024, a PFLP flag was displayed at a banner drop event co-organized by HCW4P ’s Seattle chapter at the University of Washington. Notably, HCW4P’s co-sponsors for this event included Samidoun.

At a May 27, 2024, rally in New York City co-organized by HCW4P and WOL, masked attendees prominently waved the flags of PIJ and Hamas’s military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, while others wore headbands bearing the logos of Hamas and the PFLP. Some attendees chanted, in Arabic, “strike, strike Tel Aviv.”

At that rally, Anas Saleh, a prominent organizer for HCW4P New York and WOL, led the crowd in chanting, “From the water to the water [Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea], Palestine is Arab” (in Arabic; a slogan commonly used as a call for an end of the Jewish state and the potential ethnic cleansing of Jews) and “Intifada, Intifada; Long live the Intifada” (a slogan commonly used as a call for violence against Israel and the global Jewish community).

Saleh made headlines days later, on June 10, 2024, for a viral video showing him shouting, “Raise your hand if you’re a Zionist, this is your chance to get out” on a crowded New York City subway car. Saleh was later arrested and charged in connection with the incident, though the charges were eventually dismissed after Saleh agreed to complete an anti-bias training course and four hours of community service. Saleh remains a prominent member in HCW4P’s New York City chapter.

During a Labor Day rally on September 2, 2024, which HCW4P co-organized with WOL, several marchers could be seen prominently displaying pro-terror paraphernalia, including the flags of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. Crowd-wide chants included “Say it loud, say it clear, we don’t want Zionists here!” and “Resistance is justified when people are occupied,” commonly used to signal support for Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attack and violent actions against Israel more broadly.

On January 25, 2025, several months after Samidoun’s designation as a sham charity of the PFLP, HCW4P’s Philadelphia chapter co-organized a protest at Philadelphia City Hall that included Samidoun organizer Abu Ali (believed to be Hassan Eliefifi) as a featured speaker.

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Terror symbols and slogans — including a Hamas headband and Samidoun-branded “Long Live October 7th” flag (left) and a flag depicting Hamas spokesperson Abu Obaida (right) — seen at a protest co-organized by the local chapter of HCW4P in Philadelphia, PA, on January 25, 2025.

At that same protest in Philadelphia, a protester waved a flag depicting Abu Obaida, Hamas’s lead spokesperson. Another attendee, wearing a green Hamas headband, waved a Samidoun-branded flag that read “Long Live October 7^th.”

On April 8, 2025, HCW4P co-organized a World Health Day protest in New York City alongside WOL. Protestors displayed pro-terror imagery, including Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and al-Qassam Brigades headbands, as well as a flag featuring the image of former PFLP spokesperson Ghassan Kanafani. Other signs often seen at HCW4P and affiliated NYC-area protests also include inverted red triangle imagery with the message, “Abolish IsraHell [sic],” and imagery depicting a swastika superimposed over a Star of David with the message, “Stop U$rael [sic] Holocaust of Palestine.”

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A sign featuring a swastika superimposed over a Star of David on a red-and-white striped background from a January 6, 2025, “Healthcare Workers and Allies Unite for Gaza” protest in New York City co-organized by HCW4P, WOL, and Doctors Against Genocide. The text reads, “Stop U$rael [sic] Holocaust of Palestine.” 

Promotion of Antisemitic Organ Stealing Conspiracy Theories

HCW4P has attempted to grant medical legitimacy to long-debunked conspiracy theory claims that Israel is engaged in a state-sponsored campaign of harvesting organs from Palestinians. This false narrative began in the 1990s and has resurged among domestic and international antisemitic and anti-Israel influencers since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack.

The conspiracy theory utilizes elements of the antisemitic blood libel, an accusation that originated in medieval Europe and claimed that Jews killed and stole the blood of Christian children for use in rituals. The trope is also documented in the Arab world as far back as the 16th century in Aleppo, modern-day Syria, and infamously resurged during the events of the 1840 Damascus Blood Libel.

It has continued in various forms since then. Certain anti-Zionist publications and cartoons have at times employed a version of the blood libel in which Israeli leaders are depicted drinking the blood of or eating Palestinian children.

In December 2023, the HCW4P Los Angeles chapter published a zine titled “Occupation and (Medical) Apartheid in Palestine.” In this iteration of the libel, blood is substituted with organs.”

In the January 2025 Healthcare Edition of WAWOG’s “The New York (War) Crimes,” HCW4P authored an article titled, “Israel Steals Organs,” which added additional baseless claims that Israel engages in an international campaign of organ smuggling and has long worked to “perpetuate organ theft and trafficking schemes.”

The evidence cited in the article, as in most other versions of the conspiracy theory, stems from an infamous instance in the 1990s at a single Israeli facility, Israel's Abu Kabir Forensic Institute. The institute's chief pathologist, Dr. Yehuda Hiss, introduced and supervised a practice that took organs such as corneas, skin, and heart valves from deceased individuals—including Israeli soldiers and civilians, Palestinians, and foreign workers—without family permission. The uproar led to an Israeli state inquiry that found "no evidence that Hiss targeted Palestinians." Instead, the report concluded that he viewed "every human body that ended up in his morgue, whether Israeli or Palestinian, as fair game for organ harvesting," and he was removed from his post.

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The cover image for HCW4P’s article accusing Israel of systemic organ harvesting, which appeared in the anti-Zionist publication Mondoweiss.

One of the article’s co-authors, HCW4P Seattle activist and back-office patient care coordinator Aminah Mohammed Alzahir, has an extensive history of celebrating armed Palestinian “resistance” and encouraging followers to promote messaging and statements from groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

Alzahir has also trafficked in antisemitic messaging, including posting a cartoon of a child being sacrificed and dismembered within a bloody Star of David, and an Instagram story accusing the New York Times of “manufacturing consent for genocide on behalf of the Jews for over 100 years.”Alzahir has called for “the entire and complete dismantling and erasure of the state of ‘israel’ in all its forms and factions,” as well as “the [immediate] expulsion and removal of all settlers and foreigners from the land.”

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An antisemitic image posted by the author of HCW4P’s article accusing Israel of organ harvesting. In it, a dismembered baby with a keffiyeh is shown with its body parts scattered inside a blood-red Star of David.