Doctors Hang 81 Empty Scrubs Outside WMA Summit as Global Campaign Challenges WMA over IMA Membership
International pressure on the World Medical Association (WMA) to suspend the Israeli Medical Association (IMA) is growing. As the WMA gathers in Rotterdam, doctors, medical leaders and activists from around the world will come together on 8 and 10 October for an international medical summit, a major public protest and the delivery of a global petition signed by nearly 6,500 health workers.
8 October: International Medical Summit Challenges the WMA
On Thursday 8 October, an international meeting at Theater Rotterdam will bring together Palestinian doctors, medical leaders and human rights activists, including Palestinian surgeon practising in Gaza Dr. Hussein Shomar, BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti, South African Medical Association president Dr. Mvuyisi Mzukwa, and orthopaedic surgeon Swee Ang, to address the destruction of Palestinian healthcare and the responsibility of the international medical community. Professor Derek Summerfield will address the complicity of the IMA and the involvement of Israeli doctors in the torture of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
“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? 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.”
— Jonathan Fluxman, on behalf of the IMA OUT! coalition
The IMA Is More Than a Bystander
According to the IMA OUT! campaign, the IMA has not merely remained silent as Palestinian healthcare has been systematically destroyed: it has legitimised that destruction and blocked international condemnation.
IMA chairman Zion Hagay argued that Hamas needed to be “rooted out” of healthcare facilities which he claimed were being used as “terror bases.” Hagay also said this year that the IMA had blocked four attempts within the WMA to condemn Israel over the destruction of Palestinian healthcare facilities.
“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.”
— Mejrem Ahmetaj, family doctor and member of Artsen voor Gaza in the Netherlands
10 October: 81 Empty Scrubs at the WMA’s Doorstep
Two days later, on Saturday 10 October, the protest moves directly to the WMA’s doorstep. 81 healthcare workers will simultaneously remove their scrubs and hang them in a long line facing the WMA meeting. Each will bear the name of a Palestinian healthcare worker currently held in illegal Israeli detention, where they are being starved and tortured.
This will form part of a protest against the ongoing membership of the IMA in the WMA, despite it breaching almost every ethical principle in the WMA’s Code of Medical Ethics. Since October 2023, more than 1,700 healthcare workers have been killed, while hospitals, ambulances and medical facilities have been damaged or destroyed on a massive scale.
“These scrubs should not be empty. Our colleagues belong with their patients, not in Israeli prisons. On Saturday, we will literally place their names at the WMA’s doorstep.”
— Mejrem Ahmetaj
Nearly 6,500 Health Workers Call for the IMA’s Suspension
At the end of the protest on Saturday 10 October, the IMA OUT! campaign will deliver the global petition to the WMA, signed by nearly 6,500 health workers from all over the world.
The petition demands that the IMA be suspended by the WMA for its gross violations of medical ethics over decades, concerning Palestinian patients and healthcare services and the complicity of Israeli doctors in the starvation, torture and medical neglect of Palestinian prisoners.
As medical leaders from around the world gather for the WMA summit in Rotterdam, doctors and healthcare workers will also call on other national medical associations to follow the South African, British and Turkish medical associations in cutting their ties with the IMA, and will push the WMA to suspend the IMA.
“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.”
— Loes de Kleijn, general practitioner and part of the IMA OUT! coalition