Hundreds of doctors gathered outside the World Medical Association (WMA) summit in Rotterdam this month to demand that the Israeli Medical Association (IMA) be suspended from the global body, Al Jazeera reported on 10 October 2026. HAC salutes every one of them.
In the protest's most powerful moment, 81 healthcare workers took off their scrubs and hung them in a line facing the WMA assembly. Each set bore the name of a Palestinian healthcare worker held in Israeli detention.
What they are asking for
The protest was organised by the IMA Out! coalition, which says the Israeli association has remained a WMA member "despite them breaching almost every ethical principle in the WMA's Code of Medical Ethics". The campaign said it delivered a petition calling for the IMA's suspension signed by more than 6,500 health workers worldwide.
"These scrubs should not be empty. Our colleagues belong with their patients, not in Israeli prisons," said Mejrem Ahmetaj, a general practitioner and member of the coalition. "The IMA is not a bystander. It defends these attacks and blocks international condemnation while Palestinian healthcare is being destroyed. That is not medical neutrality. That is complicity."
A statement delivered on behalf of the campaign by Jonathan Fluxman said: "Thirty years of WMA dialogue with the IMA has done nothing but give the IMA a sense of impunity." He called on national medical associations and the WMA to "speak out and take action".
Among the detainees highlighted was Dr Hussam Abu Safia, head of Gaza's Kamal Adwan Hospital, whose detention Al Jazeera reports has prompted an international outcry. Protesters held placards demanding his release. His son, Elyas, told a campaign meeting: "Care cannot be given based on whose life is deemed worthy."
Al Jazeera reports that since October 2023 more than 1,700 Palestinian healthcare workers have been killed and nearly all of Gaza's hospitals and healthcare facilities destroyed. Its report did not include a response from the IMA or the WMA.
Why this matters to us
This is what medical ethics looks like in practice. Doctors and nurses are trained to speak up when patients and colleagues are harmed. When the colleagues being harmed are Palestinian, too many clinicians here in the UK tell us they feel they must stay silent for fear of a complaint to their employer or regulator.
The health workers in Rotterdam refused to stay silent. They spoke openly and peacefully, in front of the profession's own global body, on behalf of colleagues who cannot speak for themselves. HAC backs their call. We urge the WMA to act on the petition, and we urge the BMA and every UK medical and nursing body to make clear that their members have every right to stand with Palestinian health workers.
