A doctor who called Hamas terrorists “martyrs” and made a “throat-slitting” at Jewish protesters is still practising, despite a new investigation and growing calls for her to be banned from medicine.
Dr Rahmeh Aladwan, a trainee orthopaedic surgeon, has been dragged back to a medical tribunal after public outrage over an earlier decision which saw her let off the hook and allowed to continue working.
The General Medical Council (GMC) have since said she will need to go to an Interim Orders Tribunal on October 23, which will decide whether or not she’s suspended as the probe continues.
Last month, the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) refused to put any restrictions on Dr Aladwan’s licence, as the panel declared she was “no immediate risk to patient safety” despite her frequent antisemitic tirades on social media, which included one post where she placed the words “Rabbi Genocide” over an image of the Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis.
The decision triggered nationwide fury, and fuelled fears about antisemitism in the health service.
Health Secretary Wes Sreeting said that the NHS was failing to “protect Jewish patients” as he told the Times of Israel that “antisemitism has absolutely no place in our NHS”. He added that “doctors making racist comments about Jewish people is abhorrent and demands action”.
Dr Aladwans posts have been widely condemned as antisemitic. In one vile message on X she wrote: “October 7. The day Israel was humiliated. Their supremacy shattered at the hands of the children they forced out of their homes.”
She has also described the Royal Free Hospital as a “Jewish supremacy cesspit”, claimed antisemitism is “a misnomer” and insisted she would “never condemn October 7”, the date Hamas murdered 1,200 Israelis. Dr Aladwan also called for the terrorist organisation Hamas, which carried out the largest mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust, to be de-proscribed.
The GMC said its re-referral was made because an interim order may be needed owing to immediate risk to public protection. If the tribunal imposes an interim suspension, she could be barred from working until the investigation is concluded.
Dr Aladwan, who continues to practise as a doctor, has defended her actions as political free speech protected under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Her solicitor Jahad Rahman, of Rahman Lowe Solicitors, accused the Health Secretary of political interference, saying: “When ministers comment on ongoing cases, they risk undermining public confidence in the impartiality of judicial proceedings.”
When his client was previously let off by the GMC, he took to social media to call it a “high victory for free speech”, saying that “regulators such as the HMC should not be used as a weapon to suppress pro-Palestinian views”.
Dr Aladwan celebrated the tribunal’s earlier decision not to suspend her by mocking critics as the “unhinged UK ‘Israeli’ Jewish lobby”.
Until the tribunal reconvenes later this month, Dr Aladwan remains free to practise medicine.