Hundreds of doctors gathered outside the World Medical Association (WMA) summit in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, to demand the suspension of the Israeli Medical Association (IMA) from the global body. On Saturday, 81 health workers removed their scrubs and hung them in a line facing the assembly, each bearing the name of a Palestinian health worker held in Israeli detention, Al Jazeera reported.
Israeli Medical Association accused of complicity
The IMA Out! coalition, which organised the protest, said the Israeli association remains a WMA member despite breaching almost every ethical principle in the WMA’s Code of Medical Ethics. “These scrubs should not be empty. Our colleagues belong with their patients, not in Israeli prisons,” said Mejrem Ahmetaj, a general practitioner and member of the coalition. “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.”
Since October 2023, Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has martyred more than 1,700 Palestinian health workers and destroyed nearly all of the enclave’s hospitals and healthcare facilities, according to Al Jazeera. Speaking for the campaign, Jonathan Fluxman said thirty years of WMA dialogue with the IMA had “done nothing but give the IMA a sense of impunity,” and urged the WMA to suspend it now. The campaign also delivered a petition signed by more than 6,500 health workers worldwide.
Read More: Sde Teiman Torture: Hind Rajab Group Targets Israeli Doctors
Calls to free Dr Hussam Abu Safia
Protesters held placards demanding the release of Dr Hussam Abu Safia, director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital. According to Al Jazeera, he was briefly held at the notorious Sde Teiman detention camp and has been subjected to torture and medical neglect. His son, Elyas, told a meeting organised by the campaign that his father and all Palestinian detainees must be treated in accordance with medical ethics. The campaign also demanded accountability for Israeli doctors’ complicity in the starvation, torture and medical neglect of Palestinian prisoners.
Sources: Al Jazeera
About The Author
