This is a response to Dr Panchal’s opinion piece that accused us, teachers, directors and staff of the programme he participated in, of not discussing or protesting against the situation in Gaza during the academic year of 2023-24. We find this accusation to be utterly wrong and incorrect. Beyond taking care of the safety of our students, the School facilitated discussion in class regarding the situation. Furthermore, some of the authors participated in protests and publicly advocated for the wellbeing and health of the Gazan population starting already in the early days of this war. Finally, we find it unethical that Dr Panchal did not approach us on this issue, either during his stay in Israel or before or after he chose to publish his opinion.
Keywords: Gaza, ethics, discussion, teachers-students relationship
We read with concern Dr Vidit Panchal’s opinion piece [1], which reached us only recently via social media. In standard academic discourse, he or the editor would have sought our comment before publication.
As teachers at the Hebrew University-Hadassah Braun School of Public Health, we take pride in Dr Panchal and our more than 1,100 alumni from over 100 countries who, since 1971, have participated in our International Master of Public Health (IMPH) programme1 and have gone on to contribute meaningfully to global public health. We therefore feel compelled to respond to this tendentious portrayal of an academic year lived in wartime, and Dr Panchal’s mischaracterisation of our institution and its activities — both within and outside the programme.
Dr Panchal’s studies coincided with the tragic onset of the war in Gaza following the October 7 Hamas-led massacres. In his account, he writes that “Soon after the events of October 7, Israeli universities actively sought to gather international support for the country during its military operations”. A more accurate depiction would have acknowledged that immediately after October 7, the programme staff, our School and University worked tirelessly to keep the teaching programme running. Our foremost goal was to ensure that all international students — including a Palestinian student — arrived safely and could complete their studies, even amid ongoing rocket fire from Gaza and Lebanon and a collective state of shock and mourning throughout the country.
Dr Panchal’s 2023-24 cohort entered an environment marked by profound loss and fear — a reality experienced first-hand by many of our staff and Israeli students. Rather than expressing empathy for these traumas, Dr Panchal laments his own emotional isolation, claiming that he did not engage in open discussion about Gaza in part because his teachers supposedly stifled debate. In fact, he had ample opportunities — both formal and informal — to discuss these issues. The humanitarian crisis in Gaza was discussed in class, and students participated in an in-depth workshop on conflict resolution in times of war, explicitly designed to encourage safeguarded expression. In this light, it appears that the choice to remain silent was Dr Panchal’s, rather than the result of any imposed censorship.
Moreover, Dr Panchal’s narrative misrepresents the diversity of opinions among our faculty. He suggests that teachers were too timid to speak publicly about the health crisis in Gaza. In reality, our staff includes individuals who have actively participated in political protests against governmental decisions, some even leading national advocacy efforts — on behalf of hostages and on behalf of Gazans suffering from a badly damaged health system — calling for action by the International Committee of the Red Cross, and for vaccine ceasefires [2].
His reduction of the faculty’s concerns to a single issue, such as the risk of polio spreading from Gaza to Israel, ignores the broader, balanced commitment our educators showed toward the lives and well-being of both Israeli and Gazan children [3]. Indeed, an article co-written by several senior Israeli health academics [4] — including his own teachers — urged regional leaders to consider the welfare of children on both sides of the conflict. The Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region (ASPHER), of which the Braun School is a member, through its Task Force on War and Public Health, issued a statement that unequivocally called attention to the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza [5]. This document, co-authored by an Israeli public health physician, was shared with our students. Regrettably, these efforts and the nuanced perspective they represent were omitted by Dr Panchal.
We acknowledge that not every Hebrew-language effort to mitigate Gaza’s suffering was known to every student. Nonetheless, we cannot excuse Dr Panchal’s failure to consult with us nor to fact-check his statements. In an ethical and scientific publication, data are rigorously vetted, not represented by anonymous opinions purporting to speak for an entire academic community.
Labelling us and our curriculum as “useless” and “devoid of humanitarian values” is misleading and injurious. A year spent studying in Jerusalem, amid such complex and painful realities, should have offered Dr Panchal a more nuanced insight into the intricacies of life and conflict in the Middle East. Rather than disparage an institution with a committed group of public health educators, he might have engaged constructively — leveraging his impressive intellect and firsthand experience to enrich the relevant discourse.
In sum, while Dr Panchal’s personal experiences deserve recognition, his public account omits much about the dedication with which Braun School and Hebrew University staff navigated a highly challenging wartime academic year. Our hope is that future reflections will present a more balanced view — one that acknowledges not only the formidable personal hardships faced by our international students, many of whom come from conflict zones, but also the efforts made by faculty to sustain education and foster dialogue under extraordinary circumstances.
1Note: International Master of Public Health (IMPH) programme: https://medicine.ekmd.huji.ac.il/en/publicHealth/IMPH/Pages/default.aspx
Authors: Ronit Calderon-Margalit (corresponding author — Ronit.calderon@mail.huji.ac.il), Director, Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine, Hadassah Medical Center, Faculty of Medicine, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, ISRAEL; A Mark Clarfield (markclar@bgu.ac.il), External teacher, Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine, Hadassah Medical Center, Faculty of Medicine, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, ISRAEL; Professor Emeritus, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and adjunct professor, Mc Gill University, Montréal, Québec CANADA; Hagit Hochner (hagit.hochner@mail.huji.ac.il), Director, International Master of Public Health (IMPH) program, Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine, Hadassah Medical Center, Faculty of Medicine, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, ISRAEL; Maureen Malowany (maureenm@ekmd.huji.ac.il), IMPH alumni academic coordinator, Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine, Hadassah Medical Center, Faculty of Medicine, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, ISRAEL; Yehuda Neumark (yehuda.neumark@mail.huji.ac.il), Director of the Hebrew University Authority for Research Students in the Experimental Studies, Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine, Hadassah Medical Center, Faculty of Medicine, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, ISRAEL; Shira Nanavati (imph_alumni@savion.huji.ac.il), IMPH Alumni Social Coodinator, Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine, Hadassah Medical Center, Faculty of Medicine, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, ISRAEL; Ora Paltiel (orap@hadassah.org.il, https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8324-3873), Former Director of the Braun School, Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine, Hadassah Medical Center, Faculty of Medicine, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, ISRAEL.
Conflict of Interest: None declared Funding: None
To cite: Calderon-Margalit R, Clarfield AM, Hochner H, Malowany M, Neumark Y, Nanavati S, Paltiel O. Response to “Israeli academia during the genocide: supporting the state through words and silences”. Indian J Med Ethics. 2025 Oct-Dec; 10(4) NS: 318-320. DOI: 10.20529/IJME.2025.074
Submission received: August 18, 2025
Submission accepted: September 1, 2025
Copyright and license
©Indian Journal of Medical Ethics 2025: Open Access and Distributed under the Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits only noncommercial and non-modified sharing in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
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