'I’ve never experienced anything like this'

Jen is a GP based in southwest Sydney who specialises in working with young people. Jen is also a staff specialist in sexual assault — besides forensic work, she provides support and care to victims of sexual violence.

Last year, Jen saw a post in Grumpy Medical Mums Group, a closed Facebook group for doctors with children, complaining that no one in the group had posted anything about the October 7 attacks.

Jen posted a comment in response “to remind people that what was happening in that area had been going on for a very long time, and that Palestinians had a really large accumulated death toll. That was my only comment,” she says.

Jen’s comment attracted angry responses from other members of the group.

“There were calls for my licence to be taken away, people saying I’m wasn’t fit to be medical practitioners – that I, personally, was most likely advocating for the rape of Israeli women,” she says. “I found that really offensive, especially considering my line of work.”

“I was like, ‘This is madness. I’ve never experienced anything like this.’”

A few months later, Jen discovered an Instagram page called notmydoctor48 had posted about her, suggesting that she was antisemitic. The post included her full name and an image from social media, and had tagged her place of work.

When Jen asked her friends on Facebook to report the page, it posted a follow-up calling her a “racist bitch” with “Hamas-loving friends”.

Jen started getting emails from the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission, the state body that fields complaints from the public about healthcare workers, notifying her that people were submitting complaints about her social media presence.

“I also had complaints to my centre and to the national head office, saying that I target and bully Jewish doctors specifically because they’re Jewish – it was very specific,” Jen says.

Neither the HCCC nor Jen’s workplace advanced the complaints, which Jen believes were “some kind of coordinated call to action by people opposed to anyone who’s pro-Palestinian”.

“My workplace already knew that I advocate for vulnerable populations – they know who I am, so they could vouch for my character,” Jen says. “And the HCCC said ‘we’ve had a look [at your social media] and we think there’s no problem, just to let you know’. I only had a couple of those, and they didn’t amount to anything.”

“But the worst thing is that it comes from people who you kind of trust not to act that way — to make vexatious complaints or claims about you with the intent of taking away your livelihood. The point is to stop you from saying what you’re saying and make you be quiet.”

“A lot of the doctors who’ve been doxxed, we were kind of picked out as people who were vocal in medical Facebook groups, where doctors sometimes discuss social issues or world events.”

Over the last year, notmydoctor48 has targeted dozens of doctors and healthcare workers like Jen for expressing support for Palestinians. Many have suffered serious professional consequences.

“Some people have received formal warnings from their work after people called up their workplaces and made false allegations. It’s had real-world impacts,” Jen says. “A few people who were once really outspoken have stopped speaking out about Palestine. They have young families or they think it’ll jeopardise their career prospects, especially if they’re medical students or junior doctors.”

For Jen, one of the worst aspects of the harassment campaign is that it’s likely being conducted by fellow healthcare workers who have access to closed social media pages and groupchats.

“It’s frightening on a few different levels. You don’t know who to trust. The people who are picking out targets are people we work with, people we refer to. We entrust our patients’ care to these people, and that trust has been broken,” she says. “These people would stalk our social media pages and post about us in their stories every day.”

“It kind of permeates your professional life. If you want to go for a job, you start to think: ‘Has this person heard about me? Is this person a Zionist?’ Everything becomes much more difficult than it should be.”

However, as the months have worn on, “more people have found the courage to speak out” in spite of the threat doxxing campaigns like notmydoctor48’s pose. While Jen has scrubbed her social media presence, she hasn’t been deterred from speaking out.

“Social media has helped with that, to disseminate what’s happening in Gaza and amplify advocacy efforts,” Jen says. “Everyone’s banding together and feeding off everyone else’s courage.”

Fundraiser for Noor Hammad

If you’ve got anything to spare, please consider giving some money to this fundraiser I’m running for Noor Hammad, a young mum in Gaza, and her baby daughter Hoor. Any money raised will be sent to Noor's brother Abdallah Abdalrahim, who lives in Sweden and can send her money directly.

What I’m looking at

• The Electronic Intifada — How Israel killed hundreds of its own people on 7 October

• Airwars — The killings they tweeted

• Mondoweiss — The beginning of the end of Israel