‘Complicit’: World Medical Association criticised for rejecting calls to suspend Israel

The World Medical Association (WMA) is facing strong criticism for refusing to suspend the Israeli Medical Association (IMA), despite documented allegations of complicity by Israeli doctors 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 on the international body to expel the IMA. Hundreds of doctors also took part in protests as the General Assembly was convening, with some carrying a shroud bearing the names of 18,000 Palestinian children who have been killed during Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Doctors argue that the IMA has failed to uphold core standards relating to medical ethics, and that they are complicit in serious violations of human rights against Palestinians, including failing to penalise Israeli doctors who may have overseen the torture of Palestinian detainees and the deaths of Palestinian healthcare workers in Israeli prisons. The Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF), a group seeking justice for war crimes, crimes against humanity and human rights violations committed by Israel against Palestinians, also filed a complaint last month to the International Criminal Court (ICC), urging it to investigate whether Israeli doctors, as well as the IMA and officials from Israel’s ministries of health and defence, have been involved in the torturing of Palestinians. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters It is the first time that a WMA member has been referred to the ICC. Dr Jonathan Fluxman, a retired British GP of Jewish heritage and organising member of the IMA Out! campaign, attended the protests in Rotterdam. “Both the WMA and IMA are refusing to investigate multiple reports by numerous human rights agencies that were sent directly to them relating to the torture and murder of healthcare workers,” he told Middle East Eye. “This goes back 30 years - the WMA has been burying reports about Israeli torture. “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.” ‘Carte blanche’ to Israel Dr Fluxman believes that the WMA should immediately initiate an investigation into the potential involvement of IMA members in the torture, abuse and deaths of Palestinian detainees. “This is about defending medical principles and the application of them,” he said. “It raises very serious questions about the WMA’s role as the international guardian of medical ethics, and we understand that a number of national medical associations remain very concerned about the situation.” ‘It raises very serious questions about the WMA’s role as the international guardian of medical ethics’ - Dr Jonathan Fluxman, retired British GP The WMA was established in 1947 to uphold medical ethics following the Second World War, after doctors from Nazi Germany were found to have participated in war crimes. One hundred and eighteen countries are currently represented within the international body. Each member country must adhere to WMA codes of practice, including its 1975 Declaration of Tokyo, which states that doctors must not participate in torture and have a duty to call it out. The last time an association was suspended was in 1976, when South Africa was blocked from attending two general assemblies due to doctors being complicit in torture during the apartheid. The first attempt to hold the IMA accountable for the alleged participation of Israeli doctors in the abuse of Palestinian detainees came in 2009, when 725 physicians from 43 countries presented findings by human rights groups to the WMA, which that year was holding its general assembly in Tel Aviv. At the time, the president of the IMA, Yoram Blachar, was also president of the WMA - he rejected allegations that Israeli medics were complicit in torture, describing them as defamatory. In 2016, 71 UK-based doctors again urged the WMA to suspend the IMA, but it refused. The Israeli association represents over 90 percent of doctors in Israel. Its current president, Zion Hagay, chairs the WMA’s socio-medical affairs committee, while its chief executive officer advocate, Leah Wapner, serves in several advisory roles, including on the WMA’s finance and planning, socio-medical affairs, and medical ethics committees. Dr Fluxman believes that the international body is protecting the IMA. “What has 30 years of inclusion and dialogue led to? Things have got worse, and the IMA has been given carte blanche to do whatever it wants,” he said. Around 1,700 healthcare workers have been killed by Israel since October 2023. South African push to expel IMA The call for the IMA to be suspended from the WMA was led by the South African Medical Association (Sama) last year. Sama’s motion failed to secure the majority that was needed to get the WMA to consider expelling the Israeli group. Instead, the WMA passed a resolution calling on the Israeli government to protect healthcare and health workers in Gaza, and asked all its members to issue public statements condemning attacks on hospitals and medical personnel. The IMA has remained silent on this, however. Dr Mvuyisi Mzukwa, the chairman of Sama, told MEE his group had decided to take its own approach against the IMA. “We were the first medical association to formally cut ties with the IMA,” he said. How the Israeli Medical Association politicised medicine to defend genocide in Gaza Read More » This was followed by the British Medical Association and the Turkish Medical Association. “We also withdrew from the WMA’s Taipei Working Group on ethics because it is chaired by an Israeli medic. It is hugely problematic that the IMA is part of the WMA’s leadership structures, given the allegations surrounding them,” Mzukwa said. “As a world body, the WMA’s name is being tarnished by the presence of the IMA, and they should have suspended them until these controversies are resolved. “It is a huge indictment on the WMA. The international body must be clear about the principles it stands for.” Dr Mzukwa explained that he had been planning to arrive earlier at this year’s General Assembly in order to rally other members of the WMA to join the call for the IMA to be boycotted. However, he and most of his South African colleagues could not attend because of visa issues. “I had applied on time, but for some reason the visa ended up being sent to Pretoria rather than Durban, where it usually goes, and there was no way I could have collected it in time for the General Assembly,” he said. “I have my suspicions about why this might have happened. I was planning to give a speech at the General Assembly and was prepared to put my head above the parapet to call for the IMA to be expelled. “It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that there could have been some intel on me to try to prevent me from attending.” MEE contacted the Netherlands’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment but received no response by the time of publication. Mzukwa has been vocal in his criticism of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. His stance aligns with that of the South African government, which brought a case to the International Court of Justice in 2023 accusing Israel of committing genocide. Dr Mzukwa also told MEE that Sama, the IMA and the WMA had held a meeting at the end of July about the case of Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, a Palestinian paediatrician and former head of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza, who has been detained by Israel since December 2024 and subjected to brutal beatings. “We raised concerns about the lack of access to Dr Abu Safiya, the denial of medical treatment for him and uncertainty around his condition,” Dr Mzukwa explained. “The IMA told us they had requested the Israeli authorities to carry out medical examinations and allow external physicians into the prison where Dr Abu Safiya is being held, but we weren’t shown any evidence to support this - this was a red flag for us.” ‘A buttress of the Israeli state’ Derek Summerfield, an honorary senior lecturer at King’s College London who has researched and campaigned on the psychiatric impact of the detention and torture of Palestinian prisoners in Israel, has been calling on the WMA to expel the Israeli association for almost two decades. “We’re dealing with two ethically corrupt bodies - the WMA and the IMA - and are appealing to one to do something with the other one - but the WMA has long since sold out,” he told MEE. ‘We’re dealing with two ethically corrupt bodies - the WMA and the IMA - and are appealing to one to do something with the other one - but the WMA has long since sold out’ - Dr Derek Summerfield, King’s College London “There is a long-established body of evidence on Israeli doctors’ complicity in torture suites, and these days they are even more present there, and participate directly. “The IMA is an example of the disgusting way in which doctors can behave - they are shielding doctors’ involved in Israel’s genocide on Gaza, and it’s outrageous that they’re a full member of the WMA. “The IMA really is the buttress of the Israeli state.” Dr Fluxman has also raised concerns about how the IMA’s ethical policy allows for exemptions from the WMA’s principles. “It is their policy to allow Israeli doctors to compromise fundamental ethical principles and defer to military and security officials over the provision of healthcare and protection of health personnel,” he said. “It also means they are in breach of the WMA’s position on medical neutrality.” The IMA has consistently remained silent amid ongoing attacks on healthcare facilities in Gaza, as well as the targeting of healthcare workers. In fact, it has frequently sought to challenge criticism of Israel’s actions by international medical associations. Palestinian bodies released by Israel came from infamous Sde Teiman detention centre Read More » At this year’s WMA General Assembly, the IMA installed banners outside the convention, calling on medical associations not to boycott them and asking them to remember the 7 October 2023 attacks. In November 2023, IMA’s president, Professor Hagay, refused to call for a ceasefire and justified Israeli military strikes on hospitals in Gaza, arguing that Hamas fighters needed to be “rooted out of terror bases”. That month, 81 Israeli doctors signed a letter supporting the bombing of hospitals, something which the IMA refused to condemn, contravening WMA principles on the protection of healthcare settings and health workers. Furthermore, Dr Liav Goldstein, a senior member of the IMA’s ethics bureau and chief medical officer of the Israeli Prison Service, has approved the starvation diet imposed on thousands of Palestinian prisoners after 7 October by the national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir. The IMA’s attempts to safeguard the reputation of the Israeli state were also laid bare when in May 2024, Hagay wrote to the Israeli Prison Service about the death in prison of Dr Adnan al-Bursh, a Palestinian surgeon who was head of the orthopaedic department at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. After a highly critical British Medical Journal article about the circumstances surrounding Dr Al-Bursh's death, Professor Hagay wrote: “We would appreciate any information that could help us refute this claim, which, needless to say, causes significant harm to Israel’s standing and image worldwide.” Torture camp Whistleblowers from Sde Teiman, an Israeli military base in the Negev desert that was converted into a detention camp at the start of the Gaza genocide, have documented the systemic abuse and torture of Palestinian detainees there, including the denial of medical treatment by Israeli medics. Accounts describe prisoners being held naked, shackled and forced to wear nappies instead of being allowed to use a toilet. Some have also had to undergo amputations, often without anaesthesia. 'The WMA must answer why an association that provided institutional cover for torture is still welcome at its table' - Dyab Abou Jahjah, Hund Rajab Association The centre has been used to detain thousands of Palestinians from Gaza, the majority of whom are civilians, including healthcare and humanitarian workers, who are being held under the so-called “unlawful combatants” law, which has been used to strip detainees of basic legal protections and enable their detention without charge or trial. Several individuals have died while being held there. IMA ethics board director Yossi Walfisch dismissed accusations of ill-treatment and said prisoners at the camp were receiving “appropriate medical care”. Dr Al-Bursh was held at Sde Teiman before being taken to Ofer Prison, where he died. While in prison he was brutally beaten, tortured and repeatedly raped, according to testimonies of released Palestinian prisoners who had met him. The Hind Rajab Foundation said evidence shows that medical participation in torture and abuse at the camp was structural. Dyab Abou Jahjah, director general at HRF, said: “Israeli physicians abandoned their neutrality when they agreed to treat patients in chains and erase what was done to them. “The WMA must answer why an association that provided institutional cover for torture is still welcome at its table.” If IMA members are found to be complicit in this, it would violate the WMA’s code of practice, values and guidelines, as well as international humanitarian law, Abou Jahjah said. The WMA told MEE: “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. “Our members, including the Israeli Medical Association, regularly call out injustices and violations of medical neutrality even when their own governments are involved.” MEE also contacted IMA but received no response by the time of publication.