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The WMA has also not publicly denounced the Israeli Medical Association for its failure to speak out against the Israeli state's actions. Since October, 2023, the Israeli state has launched more than 1650 attacks on health facilities in Gaza and the West Bank, 1 killing more than 1580 health-care workers, as of May 25, 2025, 2 and damaging or destroying at least 94% of Gazan hospitals. 3 Palestinians in Gaza, of whom 1·9 million have been displaced since October, 2023, face what the International Court of Justice is now investigating as genocide. 4,5 The scale and systematic nature of the Israeli state's assault on medical neutrality is unprecedented. 1 Despite this, the Israeli Medical Association has neither condemned the Israeli state's actions nor adequately addressed Israeli physicians' violations of medical ethics, particularly in the treatment of Palestinians held in arbitrary detention, and their commitments as codified in the WMA's Declaration of Geneva. 6 Moreover, the WMA's statements have been inadequate. 7 It has repeatedly either ignored or failed to condemn the Israeli state's repeated attacks on Gaza's health system, including the targeted destruction of infrastructure, 1 the killing and unlawful abduction of Palestinian health-care workers, 8,9 and the blockade of food, water, medicine, and other essential supplies. 10 By contrast, the WMA swiftly condemned the Iranian missile strike on Soroka Medical Centre in Beersheva in June, 2025, 11 and has taken strong positions on the Ukraine war, including naming Russia's leadership as responsible and establishing a medical aid fund. 12 This double standard reveals the WMA's selective ethics. Some medical bodies are resisting this silence: in June, 2025, the British Medical Association's members passed a motion at their annual representative meeting condemning the destruction of Gaza's health system. 13 A letter initiated by HealthWorkers4Palestine to the WMA demanding that it investigates the actions of the Israeli state received thousands of physician signatures, but remains unanswered. Physicians for Human Rights-Israel's leadership has also denounced violations of ethics by Israel's medical establishment. 14 Selective accountability weakens not only the right to health in Gaza, but the credibility of international medical ethics.
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1 Postgraduate Medical Education, Perth Children's Hospital, Nedlands, WA 6009, Australia
2 Health Workers for Palestine, London, UK
3 Paediatric Rehabilitation Department, John Hunter Children's Hospital, New Lambton Heights, NSW, Australia
4 Medical Association for the Prevention of War (Australia), Carlton, VIC, Australia
5 Medical Association for the Prevention of War (Australia), Carlton, VIC, Australia, School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
6 Health Workers for Palestine, London, UK, Centre for Humanitarianism and Social Inclusion, Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care, University College London, London, UK, Medact, London, UK
7 Health Workers for Palestine, London, UK, Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, UK
8 Medact, London, UK