The demand comes as the WMA’s General Assembly holds its annual meeting in the Netherlands through Saturday.

A petition addressed to WMA leaders and signed by around 6,500 healthcare workers says the IMA has “failed to uphold core medical ethical standards” and is “complicit in serious violations of medical neutrality and human rights, committed by the Israeli military and government.”

The petition cites systematic Israeli attacks on Palestinian healthcare facilities and personnel, the detention and torture of medical professionals, including Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, and the obstruction of medicine and other humanitarian aid to the occupied Palestinian territories.

Campaign supporters are demanding that the WMA suspend the IMA “until it publicly upholds medical ethics and humanitarian law, condemns murder and torture of Palestinian health workers and takes action against violations by its members.”

They have also called on national medical associations to follow the South African Medical Association, the British Medical Association and the Turkish Medical Association in severing institutional ties with the IMA.

“Medical ethics are the foundation of trust in healthcare,” the petition states.

“The international medical community has acted before, including during apartheid in South Africa. If medical ethics are to mean anything in the future, and we are to have confidence that the WMA can fulfill its role as the international guardian of medical ethics, then it must take concerted action to hold the IMA to account.”

The Israeli military has killed around 1,700 healthcare workers and detained hundreds more without charge since launching its assault on Gaza following the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023, according to figures cited by the World Health Organization.

Last year, the IMA defeated a similar attempt to suspend its WMA membership.

Instead, the WMA General Assembly adopted a resolution calling on the Israeli government to “instantly halt all forms of attacks on healthcare personnel, patients, healthcare facilities, and food and medical aid logistics.”

Jonathan Fluxman, a British Medical Association member and retired doctor, criticized the WMA’s approach, arguing that decades of dialogue had failed to hold the Israeli association accountable.

“Thirty years of WMA dialogue with the IMA has done nothing but give the IMA a sense of impunity. Why should they change?” Fluxman said in a statement on Friday.

“It is time for national medical associations and the WMA to speak out and take action. Break your ties with the IMA and suspend the IMA from the WMA now.”

“Either a white coat is worth protecting everywhere, or it is protected nowhere.”

Earlier this week, Doctors Without Borders, internationally known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), urged the WMA to support calls for investigations into attacks on healthcare facilities and workers in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, while pressing for the release of healthcare workers detained without due process.

Dr. Javid Abdelmoneim, MSF’s international president, highlighted the case of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the former head of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan hospital, who has been detained by Israeli authorities for more than 18 months without charge.

“He continues to endure prolonged solitary confinement, severe weight loss, and untreated pre-existing conditions; an international petition for his release has drawn signatories from 41 countries,” Abdelmoneim said.

He also cited the case of Dr Mazen Al-Rantisi, a 71-year-old family physician from Ramallah known as the “doctor of the poor,” who was arrested in June 2026 during a pre-dawn raid on his home.

Abdelmoneim further highlighted the detention of Dr Mohammed Hassan Ali Obeid, a 43-year-old Palestinian orthopedic surgeon and father of three, who has been held under Israel’s Unlawful Combatant Law for more than 600 days without charges.

“Healthcare workers are not targets,” Abdelmoneim wrote.

“Either a white coat is worth protecting everywhere, or it is protected nowhere. The test is not simply whether we affirm these principles, but whether we uphold them when it matters most.”