On 21 August 2025, I sent a letter to the President and Executive Board of WONCA, urging the organization to take a clear, principled, and consistent stance on the humanitarian and medical catastrophe in Palestine.
You can read that letter here:
👉 Letter to WONCA Executive on Palestine
In it, I made a simple appeal: if WONCA can issue detailed, urgent statements for Ukraine — naming MSF, ICRC, calling for solidarity — it must do the same for Palestine. To do otherwise is not neutrality. It is a double standard — one that undermines our credibility, our ethics, and our mission.
On 28 August, WONCA released a new statement: “Protecting Health Workers and Patients in All Conflict Zones, Including Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan.”
While I welcome any statement that names the suffering in Gaza, this one fails the test of moral leadership.
❌ The Problem: False Equivalence in the Face of Genocide
WONCA’s statement places Gaza, Ukraine, and Sudan on equal footing — a rhetorical move that obscures the scale, context, and legal reality of what is happening in Palestine.
Let us be clear:
- In Gaza, at least 1,400 healthcare workers have been killed — doctors, nurses, paramedics, surgeons — in a 19-month assault that has destroyed 33 of 36 hospitals. The UN Commission of Inquiry has stated these attacks amount to war crimes and extermination. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ruled that Israel is plausibly committing genocide and maintains a regime of apartheid in the occupied territories.
- In Ukraine, a sovereign nation is defending itself against invasion. While tragic, the health system remains functional with global support.
- In Sudan, a civil war rages, and the humanitarian crisis is dire — but it is not a state-led campaign to erase an entire health system.
To speak of these three contexts as if they are morally equivalent is to erase the unique horror of Gaza.
đź©ş A Health System Systematically Dismantled
The term “conflict zone” does not capture what is happening in Gaza.
This is not collateral damage. This is healthicide — the deliberate destruction of a health system.
As Dr. Khaled Al-Shawa, a surgeon in Gaza, said:
“After 19 months, what I feel most is helplessness. All this time has passed, and yet we still stand in front of patients, and we can’t help watching them die… My message is the same one we’ve been repeating for more than a year and a half: medical teams who continue to care for patients and remain at their posts under these devastating conditions must be protected.”
And yet, WONCA’s statement does not name Israel. It does not name genocide. It does not call for the suspension of the Israeli Association of Family Physicians (IAFP). It does not demand accountability.
It speaks of “all sides” — as if there is symmetry between an occupying army and a colonized people.
There is not.
✊ We Must Do More Than Mourn — We Must Act
WONCA’s statement says: “Protecting healthcare personnel is not optional: it is a moral and legal obligation.”
I agree.
Then why does WONCA not act on that obligation?
Why did it take 10 months after the ICJ genocide ruling to issue even this vague statement?
Why does it not suspend IAFP membership, as it would for any other association that remained silent during a genocide?
Why does it not move IAFP from WONCA Europe to the East Mediterranean Region, where it belongs geographically and politically?
Why does it not dedicate the 2027 Cape Town Conference to rebuilding Palestinian healthcare?
These are not radical demands. They are acts of consistency — the same kind of actions WONCA took for Ukraine.
🌍 Join the Global Call: Healthcare Workers for Palestine (HCW4P)
I am not alone in this call.
The Healthcare Workers for Palestine (HCW4P) movement — a growing coalition of doctors, nurses, and public health professionals — is demanding that WONCA suspend Israel’s membership until it complies with international law.
They are clear: the time to act is now.
“The open letter urges fellow family doctors to sign in support of severing ties between WONCA and Israel.”
— HCW4P Calls on WONCA to Suspend Israel
I stand with them.
And I urge every family doctor who believes in medical neutrality, equity, and human rights to do the same.
✊ What You Can Do
- Read my letter to WONCA and share it:
🔗 https://profmoosa.com/letter-to-wonca-exco-on-palestine/ - Support the HCW4P campaign calling for Israel’s suspension from WONCA:
🔗 https://profmoosa.com/hcw4p-calls-on-wonca-to-suspend-israel/ - Join the Family Doctors for Global Justice Caucus — a network of family doctors committed to ending the double standard:
🔗 https://profmoosa.com/family-doctors-for-global-justice/ - Demand that your national college of family physicians issue a strong, specific statement on Palestine — if they want to keep to generalities about global conflicts then ask: why did they not object on principle when WONCA specifically supported Ukraine. Perhaps its deep prejudices that many want to hide.
🕊️ This Is Not Politics — It Is Medicine
As family doctors, we are bound by a simple oath: to do no harm, to protect life, to serve with equity.
When we remain silent as 1,400 of our colleagues are killed — not in war, but under occupation — we fail that oath.
Our silence is not neutrality.
It is complicity.
And I refuse to let WONCA — or our global community of family doctors — be damned to that.
The time for vague statements is over.
The time for moral clarity is now.
Prof. S. Moosa
Former President, WONCA Africa
Founder, Family Doctors for Global Justice Caucus
29 August 2025