Over a thousand health professionals demand boycott of Israeli Medical Association over Gaza genocide
More than 1,150 health professionals and organisations have signed a petition calling for a boycott of the Israeli Medical Association (IMA), accusing it of failing to uphold medical ethics during Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
The campaign, led by the People’s Health Movement (PHM), Artsen voor Gaza (Doctors for Gaza) and the Health Advisory Council of Jewish Voice for Peace, is demanding that the IMA be suspended from the World Medical Association (WMA).
Campaigners accuse the IMA of silence in the face of Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s health system, the killing and detention of Palestinian medical workers and torture in Israeli detention centres.
According to PHM, the campaign seeks to “end medical complicity” and press the global medical community to act against what it describes as the IMA’s failure to condemn attacks on healthcare in Gaza. The group says 1,722 Palestinian healthcare workers have been killed since October 2023, while hospitals, ambulances and clinics have been repeatedly attacked or destroyed, crippling Gaza’s health system.
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The Lancet reported that the campaign wants the IMA’s suspension placed on the agenda of the WMA General Assembly in October. The journal also noted that it had not identified any public statement in which the IMA condemned Israeli attacks on Gaza’s health system, criticised Israel’s conduct in the genocide, called for a ceasefire or responded to UN reports of genocide against Palestinians.
Leslie London, emeritus professor of public health at the University of Cape Town and a member of PHM South Africa, told The Lancet that the IMA had “colluded in the unspeakable treatment of Palestinians during this war.” He accused the association of failing to acknowledge evidence of the deliberate targeting of health facilities and workers, as well as the “cruel, inhuman and degrading conditions” faced by Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons and detention centres.
PHM says Palestinian health workers have been “systematically targeted” as part of the destruction of the Palestinian health system, describing this as central to the genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing in the occupied West Bank. The campaign demands that WMA member associations formally raise the issue, support disciplinary measures and recognise Palestinian medical representation within the WMA.
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The IMA rejected the accusations in comments to The Lancet, describing them as “lies” or “highly contested allegations presented as fact.” It argued that calls for its expulsion confuse the actions of a government with those of a medical association and warned that such a move would damage scientific collaboration and weaken international medical dialogue.
The WMA also told The Lancet that it values engagement with its 117 national medical association members and opposes excluding members over the actions of their governments. It said dialogue among physicians is essential during global conflicts and humanitarian crises.
However, campaigners argue that dialogue without accountability risks normalising the destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system. Derek Summerfield, honorary senior clinical lecturer at King’s College London and a signatory to the petition, told The Lancet that the IMA had “broken every WMA rule in the book.”
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