The war between the United States, Israel, and Iran has continued to escalate over more than a month, with impacts expanding across the region and beyond. Physicians for Social Responsibility, Physicians for Human Rights, and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War renew our call for an immediate end to all fighting and a return to negotiations for the health and security of our planet.
In his first formal remarks on the war on April 1, President Trump threatened to bomb Iran “back to the stone ages,” betraying his lack of concern for the innocent citizens of Iran and the laws of war. In the days since, he has repeatedly threatened civilian infrastructure and populations, including “every power plant” and on April 7 stated, “a whole civilization will die tonight”. We are gravely concerned by the attacks and threats of attacks on critical energy infrastructure, desalination plants, nuclear facilities, schools, densely populated areas, and healthcare facilities. As PSR and our partners have warned, this war has led to increased global instability and risks extreme consequences, including continued energy crises or nuclear catastrophe.
Healthcare and medical personnel must never be a military target. The protection of medical workers and facilities is a fundamental obligation under international humanitarian law and essential to the lives and wellbeing of the civilian population. At the same time, the targeting of critical energy infrastructure including fossil fuel facilities such as oil and gas fields, refineries, and power plants, poses severe and long-lasting health and environmental risks. Such attacks threaten widespread civilian harm through explosions, toxic releases, air and water contamination, and disruptions to essential services including electricity, water treatment, and healthcare delivery. Recent strikes on major gas infrastructure and threats to energy systems across the region illustrate how quickly environmental devastation and humanitarian crises can compound.
The bombings of nuclear power plants are illegal under international law and risk harmful radioactive contamination of the environment, posing long-term danger to the health of surrounding communities and ecosystems. We unequivocally condemn this pattern of strikes near and on nuclear facilities, including attacks by Israel and Iran in late March and another deadly attack near Iran’s Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant this weekend.
President Trump repeated in his April 1 remarks his false claim that Iran’s nuclear program posed an imminent threat to the United States and that he therefore had no choice but to wage war. In fact, US intelligence assessments prior to last summer’s bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities had concluded that Iran was not building nuclear weapons and did not have a nuclear weapons program. War is an ineffective, unnecessary, costly, and counterproductive non-proliferation strategy.
PSR, PHR, and IPPNW call for an immediate end to all fighting and the resumption of negotiations between the US, Israel, and Iran. This is not only essential to preserve our collective security, but to protect our health and planet. As health professionals, we stand united that prevention is the only cure, and we cannot secure our common health and future through escalated military intervention. Join us in calling on your governments and representatives to support our health through a return to peaceful negotiations before it is too late.
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is a New York-based advocacy organization that uses science and medicine to prevent mass atrocities and severe human rights violations. Learn more here.