More than 1,700 Palestinian healthcare workers have been killed. Hospitals have been bombed. Ambulances have been targeted. Doctors have been arrested and tortured. Since October 2023, what has been unfolding in Gaza is not only a humanitarian catastrophe but also an unprecedented attack on the right to health.
Yet the Israeli Medical Association (IMA), the official body representing Israeli doctors within the World Medical Association (WMA), has remained silent. For us, as members of the People's Health Movement (PHM), this is unacceptable.
That is why PHM and partner organisations around the world have launched the End Medical Complicity campaign. Through this campaign, we call on the international medical community to take responsibility and suspend the Israeli Medical Association from the World Medical Association.
Healthcare Under Attack
International experts and United Nations rapporteurs have described the deliberate destruction of the Palestinian healthcare system. This goes beyond damage caused by war; it constitutes a systematic attack on hospitals, health centres, ambulances and healthcare workers. Some have even referred to it as “medicide”: the destruction of healthcare as a weapon of war.
For Viva Salud, this is not an abstract debate. Through our Palestinian partner organisation AWDA, we monitor developments on the ground every day. Despite bombardments, sieges and chronic shortages of medical supplies, their healthcare workers continue to save lives and support communities. Their courage and determination demonstrate what healthcare truly means: caring for people, even under the most inhumane circumstances.
Medical Ethics Apply to Everyone
The World Medical Association is founded on core ethical principles enshrined in documents such as the Declarations of Geneva and Tokyo. These principles require doctors and medical organisations to uphold medical neutrality, protect patients and speak out against torture, abuse and attacks on healthcare.
According to the campaign, the Israeli Medical Association has failed in this responsibility. Not only by remaining silent in the face of serious breaches of medical neutrality, but also by failing for years to take meaningful action against the violence affecting Palestinian healthcare workers and patients.
For us, the question is simple: what is the point of medical ethics if it is not applied when healthcare workers are killed and hospitals are destroyed?
A Historic Opportunity
From 7 to 10 October 2026, The World Medical Association will meet in Rotterdam for its General Assembly. This gathering offers a unique opportunity for the international medical community to send a clear message: medical institutions that fail to uphold fundamental ethical principles cannot continue to operate as though nothing has happened.
In the coming months, we will therefore work alongside healthcare professionals, trade unions, students, civil society organisations and international partners to step up the pressure. We will do so through awareness-raising activities, public campaigns and an international petition.
Neutrality Is Not an Excuse
When hospitals are targeted, when ambulances come under fire and when healthcare workers lose their lives whilst caring for patients, it is not enough to stand by and watch.
Solidarity also means demanding accountability—from governments, international institutions and organisations entrusted with upholding medical ethics.
Through End Medical Complicity, we call on the medical community to stop turning a blind eye. Because in the face of injustice, silence is not neutrality. It is complicity.
