Thousands of health workers petition world medical body to suspend Israeli Medical Association

Doctors and healthcare workers are demanding the suspension of Israeli Medical Association (IMA) from the World Medical Association (WMA) over its complicity in the destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system and the torture of Palestinian detainees. Protests are planned over the weekend outside WMA’s office in Rotterdam.

The IMA OUT! coalition organising the demonstration will deliver a petition signed by nearly 6,500 health workers worldwide, calling for the Israeli Medical Association (IMA) to be suspended over violations of medical ethics.

Campaigners accuse the Israeli association of failing to uphold its responsibilities towards Palestinian patients, healthcare workers and prisoners, and of defending the destruction of healthcare facilities while blocking international condemnation.

“The IMA is not a bystander. It defends these attacks and blocks international condemnation while Palestinian healthcare is being destroyed. That is not medical neutrality. That is complicity,” said Mejrem Ahmetaj, a family doctor and member of Artsen voor Gaza in the Netherlands.

According to the campaign, IMA chairman Zion Hagay used Hamas as a pretext to target healthcare facilities, which he claimed were being used as “terror bases”. Campaigners also cited Hagay as saying that the IMA had blocked four attempts within the World Medical Association (WMA) to condemn Israel over the destruction of Palestinian healthcare facilities.

Saturday’s demonstration, scheduled for 10 October outside WTC Beursplein Rotterdam, will feature 81 healthcare workers simultaneously removing their medical scrubs and hanging them in a line facing the WMA meeting. Each set will bear the name of a Palestinian healthcare worker held in Israeli detention.

Jonathan Fluxman, speaking on behalf of the IMA OUT! coalition, called on national medical associations to break ties with the IMA.

“Our Palestinian colleagues are being killed and imprisoned, where they are starved and tortured. Their hospitals have been destroyed and patients driven out or murdered. The IMA has said and done nothing about these war crimes against health workers, patients and hospitals. 30 years of WMA dialogue with the IMA has done nothing but give the IMA a sense of impunity, why should they change?” said Fluxman. 

READ: Over a thousand health professionals demand boycott of Israeli Medical Association over Gaza genocide

Calling on the world body to take action, Fluxman added: “And we ask: where is the dialogue with Palestinian doctors in Gaza? Where is their voice in the conferences and committees of the WMA? 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”.

According to the coalition, more than 1,700 healthcare workers have been killed since October 2023, while hospitals, ambulances and other medical facilities have been damaged or destroyed on a massive scale.

The campaign’s programme also included an international medical meeting scheduled for 8 October at Theater Rotterdam to address the destruction of Palestinian healthcare and the responsibilities of the international medical community.

Announced speakers included Palestinian surgeon Hussein Shomar, who practises in Gaza; BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti; South African Medical Association president Mvuyisi Mzukwa; orthopaedic surgeon Swee Ang; and Professor Derek Summerfield.

The petition demands the IMA’s suspension over alleged violations of medical ethics concerning Palestinian patients and healthcare services, including the complicity of Israeli doctors in the starvation, torture and medical neglect of Palestinian prisoners.

Loes de Kleijn, a general practitioner and member of the IMA OUT! coalition, said:

“The question is no longer whether the medical community should speak out, but when the WMA will finally act. We are not blaming the IMA for the actions of the Israeli government, we are blaming the IMA for its ethical failures and its justification of the bombing of Gaza’s hospitals and war crimes against Palestinian health workers. Rotterdam is the moment to take action: protect Palestinian healthcare workers and suspend the IMA.”

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