WE belong to a group of professionals who have been trying to carry out work in the health sector, aiming for a better quality of life for all citizens in the Caribbean.

Our particular focus has been on persons facing deprivation and suffering because they do not have enough money to get the healthcare they need and to get this care in a timely fashion. In other words, it is human suffering that has called us into action.

This is why we cannot be silent in the face of the ongoing massacre of the Palestinian people at the hands of countries we have always considered our friends. We therefore join the millions of people all over the world calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and in the West Bank of the Palestinian homeland.

The wiping-out of entire families, including great-grandparents, as well as children less than one year old, cannot be allowed to continue.

If we hold on to our belief in basic equity, non-violence and the protection of the weakest, we cannot remain silent in the face of the continuous killing of women and children in the Palestinian territories on a daily basis. As fellow human beings, we are duty-bound to lift our voices, crying out for a cessation to the relentless bombing taking place even as we breathe.

This is not a time when silence is golden. Following the guidance of Martin Luther King Jnr, the question we should be asking is not what will happen to us if we open our mouths at this time, but what will happen to the Palestinians if, as their brothers and sisters, we remain silent.

Let us be small countries with big hearts and let us join in the call for the slaughter taking place in Gaza to be brought to an end.

Prof Karl Theodore Dr Anton Cumberbatch Roger McLean