An NHS doctor who appeared to celebrate the Hamas Oct 7 attack on Israel has been arrested on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred.
Dr Rahmeh Aladwan, a junior medic training to be a trauma and orthopaedic surgeon, told police “you are doing this for the Israeli Jewish lobby” as she was arrested in South Gloucestershire on Tuesday morning.
In a video shared on social media, the doctor is told she is under arrest for three alleged offences relating to malicious communications and one for inciting racial hatred.
A police officer says: “On 7th October, you posted a variety of communications which demonstrated support for Hamas’ attack on Israel. An attack which involved murder, rape and kidnap of Israeli citizens, all of which may be considered grossly offensive in character.”
Dr Aladwan is told she is also accused of giving a speech calling for the eradication of Israel at a pro-Palestine protest outside the Foreign Office on July 21.
“You are doing this for the Israeli Jewish lobby so you can get an arrest on me before my tribunal on Thursday,” she appears to say in the video, adding: “This is what the UK does to their doctors.”
Dr Aladwan marked the second anniversary of Hamas’ attack on Israel with social media posts appearing to glorify “the day ‘Israel’ was humiliated”.
Palestinian fighters murdered more than 1,200 people and took a further 251 hostages during the atrocities.
The General Medical Council (GMC) launched a fitness to practise investigation following the posts. It then referred Dr Aladwan to an Interim Orders Tribunal, which took place on Sept 25 at the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS), arguing there should be restrictions on her registration.
Dr Aladwan arrested before second tribunal
The GMC can refer a doctor to such a tribunal at any time during an investigation when there are fears over immediate risk to public protection, including patient safety and the public’s confidence in the medical profession.
The junior doctor, who has also claimed the Holocaust was “a fabricated victim narrative”, escaped suspension. However, the outcome prompted Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, to declare he had “no confidence in our regulation system”.
The GMC has re-referred Dr Aladwan to the MPTS and she will face another tribunal on Thursday.
In a series of posts to mark the anniversary of Oct 7, Dr Aladwan wrote: “The day ‘Israel’ was humiliated. Their supremacy shattered at the hands of the children they forced out of their homes. The children who watched foreign Jews execute their loved ones, rape their land, and live on their stolen soil.”
She said “glory to the breaking of the 17-year-long illegal siege”, complete with a photo of a bulldozer ploughing through a fence on Oct 7.
Doctor called Holocaust a Jewish ‘concept’
The doctor has also described anti-Semitism and the Holocaust as “concepts” used by Jewish people to “promote a narrative of victimhood”, placing a trademark symbol to the right of the word Holocaust.
On July 30, Dr Aladwan claimed that the Royal Free Hospital in north London, which serves a large Jewish community, was a “Jewish supremacy cesspit”. She has also said she would “never condemn the 7th of October” and repeatedly claimed the number of “proven rapes on Oct 7 is zero”.
A UN report has found that Hamas attackers raped and gang-raped civilians at the Nova music festival, used rape and “sexualised torture” against hostages in the Gaza Strip, and raped women’s corpses.
Dr Aladwan, who is of British-Palestinian heritage, told the MPTS hearing last month that all the social media posts were “legitimate and can be defended and reasoned”. She clutched flowers and beamed for the cameras outside the tribunal building.
Mr Streeting responded on X: “The racist language of ‘Jewish supremacy’ reflects the values of Nazis, not the NHS. I fail to see how medics using such language with impunity doesn’t undermine confidence in the medical profession. I have no confidence in our regulation system.”
A Met Police spokesman said: “On the morning of Tuesday, 21 October, officers arrested a 31-year-old woman at an address in South Gloucestershire.
“The woman was arrested on suspicion of misusing a public communications network, sending malicious communications and stirring up racial hatred.
“The arrests relate to an ongoing investigation, led by the Met’s Public Order Crime Team, into allegations that comments made at a protest and online in recent months were grossly offensive and antisemitic in nature. She remains in custody.”
