World Medical Association accused of complicity after rejecting calls to suspend Israeli association

The World Medical Association (WMA) is facing intense criticism for refusing to suspend the Israeli Medical Association (IMA), despite documented allegations that Israeli doctors have been complicit in the torture of Palestinian detainees and abuses committed in Gaza.

A petition signed by 6,500 medical personnel from the IMA Out! campaign, a coalition of health advocacy groups, was presented to the WMA General Assembly in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, last month, calling for the Israeli association's expulsion. Hundreds of doctors also protested as the assembly convened, some carrying a shroud bearing the names of 18,000 Palestinian children killed during Israel's genocide in Gaza. Around 1,700 healthcare workers have been killed by Israel since October 2023.

Critics argue the IMA has failed to uphold core medical ethics standards and is complicit in serious human rights violations against Palestinians, including failing to penalise Israeli doctors who may have overseen the torture of detainees and the deaths of Palestinian healthcare workers in Israeli prisons.

The Hind Rajab Foundation, which seeks justice for war crimes and human rights violations committed by Israel against Palestinians, also filed a complaint to the International Criminal Court last month, urging it to investigate whether Israeli doctors, the IMA and officials from Israel's health and defence ministries were involved in torture. It is the first time a WMA member has been referred to the ICC.

Dr Jonathan Fluxman, a retired British GP of Jewish heritage and an organising member of the IMA Out! campaign, said both bodies had refused to investigate reports from human rights agencies about the torture and murder of healthcare workers. "They are behaving in the same way as the US and British governments, by allowing Israel to get away with a genocide. In my view, the WMA is complicit in the IMA's involvement in this," he told Middle East Eye.

The WMA was founded in 1947 to uphold medical ethics after Nazi German doctors were found to have participated in war crimes, and 118 countries are now represented in the body. Members must adhere to codes including the 1975 Declaration of Tokyo, which bars doctors from participating in torture. The only suspension in its history came in 1976, when South Africa was blocked from two general assemblies over doctors' complicity in torture during apartheid. Attempts to hold the IMA accountable date back to 2009, when 725 physicians from 43 countries presented human rights findings at a general assembly in Tel Aviv, and again in 2016, when 71 UK-based doctors urged suspension. Both efforts failed.

The IMA represents more than 90 percent of doctors in Israel, and its leaders hold senior positions within the WMA: its president, Zion Hagay, chairs the socio-medical affairs committee, while chief executive Leah Wapner sits on several advisory committees. Fluxman said three decades of inclusion and dialogue had given the IMA "carte blanche to do whatever it wants."

A push to suspend the IMA was led last year by the South African Medical Association (Sama), whose motion failed to secure the needed majority. Instead, the WMA passed a resolution calling on Israel to protect healthcare in Gaza, which the IMA has not acted on. Sama chairman Dr Mvuyisi Mzukwa said: "We were the first medical association to formally cut ties with the IMA," a step later followed by the British and Turkish medical associations. Mzukwa said he missed this year's assembly because his visa was sent to Pretoria rather than Durban, adding: "It's not beyond the realms of possibility that there could have been some intel on me to try to prevent me from attending." He also said Sama had raised concerns with the IMA and WMA in July over Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, a Palestinian paediatrician detained by Israel since December 2024, and that the IMA provided no evidence it had sought medical examinations for him.

Derek Summerfield, an honorary senior lecturer at King's College London who has campaigned on the issue for almost two decades, said: "The IMA really is the buttress of the Israeli state." Whistleblowers from Sde Teiman, a military base converted into a detention camp, have documented systemic abuse of Palestinian detainees, including denial of medical treatment and amputations performed without anaesthesia. Dyab Abou Jahjah, director general of the Hind Rajab Foundation, said: "The WMA must answer why an association that provided institutional cover for torture is still welcome at its table."

The WMA told Middle East Eye: "Inclusion sits at the core of the WMA's identity. Patients remain our focus, alongside the protection of health personnel, including physicians, wherever they serve." It added that its members, including the IMA, regularly call out injustices even when their own governments are involved. The IMA did not respond to a request for comment.