On February 24, 2026, Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute is hosting Dr. Milton Saute, the Head Lung Transplant Surgeon at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv, for a lecture in Chicago.

We are calling on Northwestern Medicine to cancel this event for the following reasons:

1. Israel Has a Documented History of Unethical and Illegal Organ Harvesting from Palestinian Bodies.
   In 2009, Israel admitted its forensic pathologists harvested organs from Palestinian bodies without family consent throughout the 1990s. In 2024, doctors examining bodies returned by Israeli forces to Gaza via the Karem Abu Salem crossing reported signs of missing organs, including corneas, cochleas, livers, kidneys, and hearts. These practices violate the Nuremberg Code, the Declaration of Helsinki, WHO guiding principles on organ transplantation, the Geneva Conventions, and international humanitarian law.
2. Israel Has Systematically Destroyed Gaza's Entire Healthcare System. Since October 7, 2023, Israeli forces have killed hundreds of Palestinian healthcare workers, destroyed or rendered non-functional nearly every hospital in Gaza, targeted ambulances and medical convoys, and blocked the entry of medical supplies and equipment into Gaza. The destruction of Gaza's health system is not collateral damage — it has been documented as systematic and deliberate. For an institution that claims to uphold medical ethics and the protection of health, Northwestern Medicine's hosting of a distinguished surgeon from an Israeli medical institution — while Palestinian healthcare workers are being killed — is a profound moral failure.
3. Israel is Committing Genocide in Gaza. On January 26, 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that South Africa's case that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza is plausible and issued provisional measures. In November 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity. As of 2025, the genocide in Gaza has been formally recognized by multiple governments, human rights organizations, and international bodies.
4. Northwestern Medicine Has a Responsibility to Its Medical Ethics. The same ethical frameworks that guide Northwestern's medical education — informed consent, do no harm, the dignity of the human body — are the frameworks being violated by Israeli medical and military institutions in Gaza and over decades in the occupied West Bank. We are not asking Northwestern Medicine to take a political side. We are asking it to live by its own stated values.

Northwestern Medicine cannot claim neutrality or ignorance. Hosting and celebrating a prominent representative of Israeli medical institutions during an active, internationally recognized genocide is a political act — one that signals complicity.

We are asking Northwestern Medicine to live by its own stated values: informed consent, do no harm, and the dignity of the human body.

Sign now to demand Northwestern Medicine cancel this event immediately.