Seventy-eight years after the Nakba, Palestinians continue to resist occupation, displacement, and the systematic destruction of their health system. In this context, health workers are advancing the struggle with a campaign to boycott the Israeli Medical Association (IMA). The new campaign initiated by Doctors for Gaza (Netherlands), Global Health BDS (UK), Health Workers for Palestine (Spain) and the People’s Health Movement (PHM) is fighting to hold the IMA accountable for neglecting medical ethics, including violations of the World Medical Association (WMA) Declarations of Geneva and Tokyo.
The motivation
Health is weaponized against Palestinians by the intentional physical destruction of medical institutions, the targeted murders and detaining of Palestinian healthcare workers, the strategized maiming of Palestinians, the deliberate reproduction of infectious and non-communicable diseases, the closing of the humanitarian corridors and the blockading of medical and humanitarian aid. These are systematic genocidal acts aimed at destroying the conditions necessary for Palestinian life. Health itself has become a battlefield in Israel’s assault on Palestinians.
Read more: Researchers warn of “de-healthification” in Palestine as infections spread in Gaza
The IMA is complicit in all of these actions – amounting to blatant and grave violations of medical ethics. The IMA’s abuses of medical ethics have been well documented and include:
- Publicly justifying the Israeli Occupying Force (IOF) military assault of Al-Shifa Hospital – in violation of international medical ethics
- Failing to defend Palestinian healthcare workers despite the martyring of over 1500 medical staff in Gaza since October 2023 and the detaining of hundreds of healthcare workers by the IOF in illegal targeted attacks.
- Tolerating clear violations of medical duties and oaths including the denying of critical treatment to Palestinians in Gaza from several Israeli hospitals. For those detained patients who were treated, they were often restrained during treatment and/or prematurely discharged from care. No action has been taken against doctors for such violations of medical standards.
- Neither condemning nor sanctioning the over 80 Israeli doctors who called for the bombing of hospitals in Gaza in late 2023.
- Deliberate ignoring of Israeli physicians’ participation in torture, including abuses against detained healthcare workers despite warnings from multiple human rights organizations.
Despite this inexhaustive record of severe medical ethics violations, the IMA continues to portray itself as a defender of humanitarian principles.
Read more: The Nakba has two narratives, one based on facts, the other on lies
On this 78th anniversary of the Nakba, doctors around the world are organizing to boycott the IMA in response to the organization’s gross neglect of medical ethics. The boycott is also motivated by the Palestinian people’s call to boycott all Israeli institutions complicit in the genocide.
The South African Medical Association (SAMA) and the British Medical Association (BMA) have formally severed ties with the IMA due to its role in the genocide. The Turkish Medical Association (TMA) and BMA, later joined by nine other national medical associations, issued a statement calling for action on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza at the 2025 WMA General Assembly held in Porto, Portugal.
Health workers during protests actions against medical associations’ complicity in Gaza genocide. Source: PHM
The first phase of the new campaign is focused on this year’s WMA Congress in Rotterdam, Netherlands, in October 2026. In preparation for the congress, the coordinators of the campaign are collecting signatures from healthcare workers and organizing physicians to petition their national medical associations to call for the suspension of IMA from the WMA and cut all ties with the IMA.
Over 500 physicians have already signed the petition, including Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, Dr. Hanne Bosselaers and Prof. Shabir Moosa, and multiple national medical associations have been contacted. A webinar featuring doctors from SAMA, BMA, TMA and Palestine will be held on May 30 to officially launch the campaign. “This campaign is not only about the IMA’s silence and inaction, but, also, about the IMA’s brazen participation in the genocide,” PHM organizers stated. “Join us and boycott the IMA!”
More information about the campaign can be found at: https://phmovement.org/end-medical-complicity
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