Doctors accuse the Israeli Medical Association of remaining silent while Palestinian health care is systematically destroyed.
Hundreds of doctors gathered outside the World Medical Association (WMA) summit in the Netherlands, calling for the suspension of the Israeli Medical Association (IMA) from the doctors’ grouping.
On Saturday, 81 health workers removed their gowns and hung them in line in front of the WMA assembly in Rotterdam, each bearing the name of a Palestinian health worker currently illegally detained by Israel.
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This was part of a protest against Israel’s continued association with the WMA, “despite the fact that it violates almost all ethical principles of the WMA Code of Medical Ethics”, the IMA Out! coalition that organized the protest said in a statement.
“These coats should not be empty. Our colleagues belong with their patients, not in Israeli prisons. Today we literally placed their names in front of the door of the AMM,” said Mejrem Ahmetaj, general practitioner and member of IMA Out!.
Since October 2023, Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has killed more than 1,700 Palestinian medical professionals and destroyed almost all hospitals and health facilities in the enclave.
The campaign accused the Israeli medical association of remaining silent while Palestinian health care was systematically destroyed.
“The IMA is not a bystander. It defends these attacks and blocks international condemnation while Palestinian health care is destroyed. This is not medical neutrality. This is complicity,” Ahmetaj added.
At a meeting of international doctors, medical leaders and human rights activists at the WMA summit on Thursday, the destruction of Palestinian health care and the responsibility of the international medical community were discussed, according to the campaign.
“Our Palestinian colleagues are being killed and imprisoned, 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,” said Jonathan Fluxman on behalf of IMA OUT!.
“Thirty years of dialogue between the WMA and the IMA have only given the IMA a feeling of impunity… It is time for the national medical associations and the WMA to speak out and take action. Sever your ties with the IMA and suspend the IMA from the WMA now,” he added.
IMA OUT! The campaign said it delivered a petition calling for the suspension of the IMA, signed by more than 6,500 health workers from around the world.
They also demanded accountability for Israeli doctors’ complicity in the starvation, torture and medical neglect of Palestinian prisoners.
Among those detained by Israel is Dr. Hussam Abu Safia, director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, whose illegal detention sparked international outcry.
He was briefly detained at the notorious Sde Teiman detention camp and was subjected to torture and neglected medical care. Doctors protesting in Rotterdam held up signs demanding his release.
Abu Safia’s son Elyas, speaking at a meeting organized by the campaign, said: “My father and all Palestinian detainees must be treated according to medical ethics, and doctors must respect the Hippocratic oath they took. Care cannot be provided based on who deserves life.”
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