More than 1,700 Palestinian health 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 physicians 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 wartime damage; 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 follow developments on the ground every day. Despite bombardments, sieges and chronic shortages of medical supplies, their health 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 physicians and medical organisations to defend 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 violations 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 does medical ethics mean 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 operating 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 increase pressure. We will do so through awareness-raising activities, public actions and an international petition.cties en een internationale petitie.
Neutrality Is Not an Excuse
When hospitals are targeted, when ambulances come under fire and when healthcare workers lose their lives while 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 defending medical ethics.
Through End Medical Complicity, we call on the medical community to stop looking away. Because in the face of injustice, silence is not neutrality. It is complicity.
