Hundreds of physicians gathered outside the World Medical Association's assembly in Rotterdam on Saturday, demanding the suspension of the Israeli Medical Association from the global body. The protest, organized by the IMA Out! coalition, centered on a stark visual: 81 healthcare workers removed their scrubs and hung them in a line facing the WMA building, each bearing the name of a Palestinian healthcare worker held in Israeli detention. The coalition delivered a petition signed by more than 6,500 health workers from around the world calling for the IMA's suspension. Their core charge: the Israeli medical association has not merely remained silent while Palestinian healthcare is systematically destroyed, but has actively defended attacks and blocked 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 general practitioner and IMA Out! member. The numbers underwriting the protest are severe. Since October 2023, Israel's war on Gaza has killed more than 1,700 Palestinian healthcare workers and destroyed nearly all hospitals and healthcare facilities in the enclave. The campaign specifically demands accountability for the complicity of Israeli doctors in what it describes as the starvation, torture, and medical neglect of Palestinian prisoners. The case of Dr. Hussam Abu Safia, head of Gaza's Kamal Adwan Hospital, has become a focal point. Abu Safia was detained, held at the notorious Sde Teiman detention camp, and has been subjected to torture and medical neglect according to the campaign. His son Elyas addressed the Rotterdam meeting directly: "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." Jonathan Fluxman, speaking on behalf of IMA Out!, framed the demand as an indictment of three decades of failed engagement. "Thirty years of WMA dialogue with the IMA has done nothing but give the IMA a sense of impunity," he said, arguing that dialogue has served as cover rather than constraint. The coalition's position is that the WMA's own Code of Medical Ethics is being violated by a member association, and the parent body's continued engagement legitimizes those violations. The structural question is whether international professional bodies can enforce ethical standards against member associations operating under the political cover of their national governments. The WMA's codes exist precisely for moments when medical neutrality is weaponized — when healthcare infrastructure becomes a target and medical professionals become combatants by imposition rather than choice. The IMA Out! campaign argues that the WMA's failure to act transforms its ethical codes from binding standards into decorative text. The WMA has not publicly responded to the suspension demand. Whether the assembly takes any formal action will signal whether international medical governance has enforcement teeth or operates purely on voluntary compliance — a distinction that matters not just for Gaza but for every future conflict where healthcare systems come under deliberate attack.
