Revealed: The medics who are poisoning the NHS with their vile hatred of Jews - from the Oxford-educated doctor who designed the 'Palestine Poppy' to the surgeon who ranted about Gaza... to a Jewish cancer patient

On the professional networking site LinkedIn, NHS doctor Abdul Qader Ismail describes himself as a 'human being, Muslim, Son, Brother, Husband, Father and Humanitarian'.

That last term is a bit rich coming from a man who promotes anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about Israelis 'harvesting Palestinian organs', describes Hamas's October 7 terror attacks as legal 'armed resistance' and justifies the medieval practice of stoning.

The Oxford-educated paediatrician, who has worked in hospitals across the East Midlands, has spread his controversial views in talks, social media posts and writings over recent years, including books aimed at teenagers.

Dr Ismail's troubling positions only emerged last week after he designed a controversial 'Palestine poppy', which he sells for £1.78 on eBay, with the profits donated to charities working to 'end the occupation' in Gaza.

Military veterans have accused him of 'hijacking' the symbol of remembrance, while others object to the fact that it is sold on a website featuring a video carrying the slogan 'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free', which effectively calls for the destruction of Israel.

But as the Daily Mail discovered this week, such views are now becoming commonplace in the NHS, a disturbing trend that has been branded 'hate in healthcare'.

The febrile atmosphere has led to Jewish medics being called 'baby-killers' and even being greeted with a Nazi salute by a colleague. 

Meanwhile, Jewish patients have reported being berated about Israeli actions, including a cancer patient while he was being operated on, making some scared to attend appointments.

NHS doctor Abdul Qader Ismail pictured with a bird on his shoulder

Mr Ismail designed the controversial 'Palestine poppy' which he sells for £1.78 on eBay

An NHS midwife told us that pro-Palestinian activism by NHS staff has become a 'free for all' since the October 7 attacks, which created a 'hostile environment'.

'Some of these doctors have been particularly pernicious in their public comments and behaviours,' she said, 'and that's obviously then created huge anxiety and fear for Jewish patients using NHS services who wonder whether they'll be safe, whether they'll be confronted by people wearing political insignia, and what that will mean for their treatment.'

Campaigners and medics accuse the General Medical Council (GMC) of turning a 'blind eye' to the problem and, at worst, introducing policies that have helped it flourish.

A campaign group has compiled a disturbing list of around 40 doctors – the majority working in the health service – who publicly spout deeply disturbing views.

They include an NHS consultant and senior trauma surgeon at a major London hospital who spread a conspiracy theory that Jews celebrated the 9/11 attacks – on the anniversary of the atrocities in 2024 they reposted an AI-generated image of Orthodox Jewish men celebrating in front of the Twin Towers as a plane approaches.

He has also shared a cartoon showing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushing a coffin draped in a Palestinian flag into a Nazi concentration camp oven.

The image, which accentuates the Jewish leader's ears and nose, includes an inscription above the oven that reads 'Arbeit Macht Frei' – 'work makes you free' – the slogan that hung above the entrances to concentration camps such as Auschwitz.

The consultant had previously responded to reports of a rocket hitting a house in Israel on social media by saying: 'Great news, thanks for sharing. May all the Palestinian rockets hit their target, amen.'

Dr Rahmeh Aladwan pictured at the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) hearing at St. James Building, Manchester

A doctor wearing scrubs and a lab coat pictured holding a Star of David chain

And an NHS paediatrician responsible for child protection in north London was suspended last year after describing Hamas as 'oppressed resistance fighters, NOT terrorists', posting repeatedly about 'Jewish supremacy' and describing responses to October 7 as 'always trying to frame the Jews as victims. So ridiculous. So excruciating. So exhausting'.

Another case involves an Iraq-born surgeon working as an NHS consultant at a north London hospital who has shared a series of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories online, including claims that the Israeli military killed most Jewish victims on October 7 and that Mossad was behind the assassination of John F Kennedy and the 9/11 attacks.

He has also reposted videos of other people spouting an off-the-wall conspiracy that Jews are orchestrating the rape of little girls by US politicians so they can be videoed by Mossad and then blackmailed 'for the benefit of Israel'.

And these are all on top of some of the most notorious and well-known cases, such as that of Dr Rahmeh Aladwan, who was initially allowed to keep working for the NHS despite making a 'slit your throat' gesture at Jewish protesters and posting anti-Semitic tirades online.

She was subsequently barred from practising for 15 months at a second hearing in November last year and she is now due to stand trial at the Old Bailey in 2027 for allegedly posting on social media in support of Hamas.

In some cases, Jewish patients have paid the price for these attitudes. They include IT manager Saul Freeman, 53, who was subjected to a tirade against Jews while having a cancerous lesion removed for a biopsy under local anaesthetic at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield.

While he was wearing a Star of David necklace at the time, he is unsure whether the surgeon noticed it. As the procedure began, the pair made casual conversation about Formula One but, when the surgeon turned his attention to the Middle East, things suddenly became unpleasant.

Saul says: 'The surgeon said: 'They're still killing children in Gaza. You would think they would know better, given what had happened to them in Europe.' I literally just said: 'Oh, who's they?' And he said: 'The Jews. They should know better.'

'That was his response. And this is whilst he was carrying out the operation. 'He said: 'I went to a talk from a British doctor who'd been in Gaza, and he was telling us how every day the wounds that come in in Gaza of the women and children. 

'They're different every day. One day they're all shot in the leg, the next day they're all shot in the head or they're shot in the chest, and the Jews do it for fun.'

'I thought if I argue with him I'm going to have an open wound in my head. The anaesthetic is going to wear off. There's not going to be another doctor around to step in.

'I knew I was in trouble and decided that I was going to have to sit this one out, grit my teeth, and wait for it to stop. My heart was really beating fast. It was hyper-surreal. I was thinking: 'This can't possibly be happening.' I was a prisoner of circumstance. I don't know if he knew I was Jewish or not, whether he'd seen the Star of David.'

An AI-generated image of Orthodox Jewish men celebrating in front of the Twin Towers

Shelley Lipman speaking in a documentary called Malignant: Antisemitism In The NHS

The hospital has opened an investigation into the surgeon involved.

Mr Freeman spoke to the Daily Mail after previously appearing in a documentary released last month called Malignant: Antisemitism In The NHS, compiled by the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA).

It also featured a contribution from a nurse called Shelly Lipman who described how, shortly after discussing her Jewish heritage with a healthcare assistant at the NHS hospital in Cambridge where they worked, her colleague gave her a 'Nazi salute'.

'I was absolutely gobsmacked,' Ms Lipman said. 'Right next to a patient's bed as well.'

It all begs the question: what are the authorities doing about the issue? The answer, campaigners claim, is far too little.

The CAA documentary features a clip from a meeting of the British Islamic Medical Association in June 2025, which appeared to show a GMC adviser saying the regulator was seeing 'far more complaints around anti-Semitism than we are Islamophobia' but was also 'far more likely to close' these complaints than others.

The footage also showed her boasting that the GMC had made no effort to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti‑Semitism, which campaigners say is 'crucial to fighting anti-Jewish racism'.

A Jewish NHS surgeon who works in London and asked to remain anonymous, said: 'I have also been told verbally that Islamophobia is the GMC's priority at the moment.

'Because they don't have a definition of anti-Semitism, it means that anyone who attacks a Jew can say it is freedom of speech and expressing an opinion.

'They want to be seen as even-handed. When a Jew makes a complaint of anti-Semitism against a Muslim medic, they will often find themselves being accused of Islamophobia and then they have this accusation hanging over their heads. 

'It feels like every time a Muslim doctor gets into trouble, they've got to also sort of try and punish Jews.

'So you've got these extremist doctors saying what they like on social media – often celebrating October 7 and saying all this stuff about Zionists.

Saul Freeman speaking in a documentary called Malignant: Antisemitism In The NHS

People visit the memorial site for the victims of the 07 October 2023 Supernova music festival attack

'And then you have patients who look up who is going to be doing their operation and they see an anaesthetist has been writing about how much he hates Zionists and that obviously terrifies them.

'I've had these sad situations of patients, who should be under general anaesthesia, saying they want to have things under local anaesthesia because they're scared. It's just awful, to be honest.'

He said he believed one of the issues was that the GMC was focused on reducing what it regards as a disproportionate number of referrals involving foreign-born doctors. 'That seems paramount for them,' he said.

Of course, by no means all the anti-Semitism has come from foreign-born or trained doctors – as the surgeon we spoke to put it, 'Jew-haters come from all backgrounds' – but a striking number of the examples seen by the Daily Mail were raising concerns that the GMC's attempts to curb alleged prejudice in one area have only allowed it to flourish elsewhere.

The surgeon said: 'The main problem is you have a regulator which is above the law and which does not accept the government definition, or any definition for that matter, of Jew hatred, so they have no threshold unless someone literally says: 'I want to gas all Jews now.' It has to be something really blatant.'

Gnasher Jew, the online campaign group that compiled the dossier on the anti-Semitic doctors, said: 'We find it staggering that our work alone has identified approximately 40 medical professionals making grotesque anti-Semitic comments, some of which we consider neo-Nazi in nature.

'Yet our reports to the General Medical Council have resulted in little or no action.'

Stephen Silverman, director of investigations and enforcement at the Campaign Against Antisemitism, said its documentary had uncovered over 100 cases of concern, and 'more have emerged since we broadcast the film'.

'The spotlight must now turn to regulators like the GMC, which, whether due to lack of funds or for ideological reasons, have swept anti-Semitism under the carpet.'

A Department of Health and Social Care review into anti-Semitism released in the summer found some Jewish staff experience routine ostracism and had even considered leaving the NHS.

Lord Mann, the government's independent adviser on anti-Semitism who led the review, called on the NHS to be 'a responsible and inclusive employer'.

The recommended measures included mandatory anti-Semitism training and restrictions on political symbols that could create a perception of bias among patients.

But the British Medical Association voted to oppose the recommendations and seek an 'immediate pause', warning of implications for freedom of expression.

When the Daily Mail approached the home where Dr Ismail is listed as living with his family in a terraced house in the heart of Birmingham's Sparkbrook district, we were told he was not at home by a woman at the property.

He did not respond to other requests for comment from the Daily Mail and his social media has been rapidly removed.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Department of Health said: 'We commissioned Lord Mann's review last year to root out the cancer of anti-Semitism and other forms of racism from our health service, and as well as the NHS implementing all of Lord Mann's recommendations, we expect the GMC to take the strongest possible action in individual cases wherever necessary.'

For its part, the GMC said: 'We are very clear that anti-Semitism is completely unacceptable. Doctors and patients should have confidence that if a concern is raised with the GMC it will be dealt with appropriately. 

'We can and will investigate serious concerns that suggest patient safety or the public's confidence in doctors may be at risk.

'Where complaints regarding anti-Semitism have been raised with us, approximately 19.5 per cent of doctors have faced regulatory action.

'This includes two doctors who have been erased from the medical register, one who received a suspension and two who were issued warnings.'

Asked whether it would be taking action against Dr Ismail, the GMC said he remained on the medical register without any current restrictions, but added that this didn't necessarily mean they weren't looking into concerns.

Given their recent track record, Jewish medics are not hopeful that anything will be done.