World
Doctors Protest at WMA Summit, Call for Suspension of Israeli Medical Association
Hundreds of doctors gathered outside the World Medical Association (WMA) summit in Rotterdam, Netherlands, demanding that the Israeli Medical Association (IMA) be suspended from the WMA. On Saturday, 81 healthcare workers removed their scrubs and hung them in a line facing the WMA assembly, each scrub bearing the name of a Palestinian healthcare worker currently held in illegal Israeli detention. The protest was organized by the IMA Out! coalition, which said the IMA had breached “almost every ethical principle in the WMA’s Code of Medical Ethics.”
Mejrem Ahmetaj, a general practitioner and member of IMA Out!, said, “These scrubs should not be empty. Our colleagues belong with their patients, not in Israeli prisons. Today, we literally placed their names at the WMA’s doorstep.”
Since October 2023, Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 1,700 Palestinian healthcare workers and destroyed nearly all hospitals and healthcare facilities in the enclave. The campaign accuses the IMA of remaining silent as Palestinian healthcare is systematically destroyed, adding that the IMA “defends these attacks and blocks international condemnation while Palestinian healthcare is being destroyed. That is not medical neutrality. That is complicity.”
During the WMA summit, a meeting of international doctors, medical leaders and human rights activists discussed the destruction of Palestinian healthcare and the responsibility of the international medical community.
Jonathan Fluxman, speaking on behalf of IMA OUT!, said, “Thirty years of WMA dialogue with the IMA has done nothing but give the IMA a sense of impunity … It is time for national medical associations and the WMA to speak out and take action. Break your ties with the IMA and suspend the IMA from the WMA now.”
The IMA OUT! campaign delivered a petition calling for the IMA’s suspension, signed by more than 6,500 health workers worldwide. The campaign also demanded accountability for Israeli doctors’ complicity in the starvation, torture and medical neglect of Palestinian prisoners.
Among those held by Israel is Dr. Hussam Abu Safia, head of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, whose unlawful detention has prompted international outcry. He was briefly held at the Sde Teiman detention camp and has been subject to torture and medical neglect. Doctors protesting in Rotterdam held up placards demanding his release.
Abu Safia’s son Elyas addressed a meeting organized by the campaign, saying, “My father and all Palestinian detainees must be treated in accordance with medical ethics, and doctors must abide by the Hippocratic oath they have taken. Care cannot be given based on whose life is deemed worthy.”