Dear friend,

It has become hard to find the right words to express the horrors of the last few months. Like you, I have watched the images coming out of Gaza each day with dread. More than 20,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s assault, most of them women and children. Families are being displaced, again and again, chased ever-southwards by the bombs. Everyone is hungry. Some are starving.

A YouGov poll commissioned by Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) and the Council for Arab-British Understanding (Caabu) highlights an overwhelming level of British public support for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

Gaza is devastated.

100 days of Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment and siege have reduced entire neighbourhoods to rubble.

One in every 100 people have been killed, most of them women and children.

The dead are buried in mass graves, or remain trapped beneath the rubble.

The health system is being systematically dismantled, and our volunteer doctors who have entered Gaza report apocalyptic conditions in those hospitals that are still functioning.

Medical Aid for Palestinians has supported Gaza Medic Voices' vigil for healthcare workers in Gaza, encouraged healthcare workers to attend the event taking place outside Downing Street on Friday 10 November 2023 at 6pm. 

The vigil is being organised to call on Rishi Sunak to push for an urgent ceasefire and was held in honour of the healthcare workers, medics and hospital staff killed by Israel's bombardment of Gaza. 

Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) is raising the alarm about the imminent threat of full-scale military assaults against hospitals in northern Gaza, and demanding that the international community take urgent action to protect them from attack.

Palestinian health services have come under repeated attack during Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment of Gaza since 7 October. According to the World Health Organization, 36 health facilities including 22 hospitals have been damaged.

Hospitals in the north of Gaza are besieged and under attack. Many have fled these supposedly safe spaces in fear for their lives, but thousands of staff, patients and displaced people remain trapped inside. With media having been forced out and communications limited, we are terrified about what comes next for civilians in the north of Gaza. 

In 1984, a group of doctors and humanitarians, horrified by the massacre of Palestinian civilians they had witnessed in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon, grouped together to form Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP). For them, medical relief wasn’t just about saving lives, but was a tangible act of solidarity with a people who had suffered so much for so long.

On Saturday 7 October, Hamas and Palestinian armed groups fired hundreds of rockets into Israel, and militants crossed the perimeter fence to launch attacks in cities and towns surrounding Gaza. In response, Israel has launched an extensive aerial bombardment across all areas of Gaza.

Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP)’s first convoy of aid trucks carrying essential medicines and supplies has now entered Gaza via the southern Rafah crossing. This urgently needed aid, including medicines and disposables for operating theatres and the treatment of traumatic injuries, will be delivered to four hospitals in southern and central Gaza: Nasser Hospital and European Gaza Hospital in Khan Younis, Shuhada al Aqsa Hospital in the Middle Area, and Abu Yousef Al Najjar Hospital in Rafah.

After five months of escalating violence in Gaza, we take stock of the situation and hear the heart-rending account of Jean-Pierre Delomier, HI's Deputy Director of International Operations, who recently returned from Rafah.