The Al Ahli Arab Hospital has been “working around the clock to serve the wounded from the escalating violence” in the Gaza Strip, according to Archbishop Suheil Dawani, primate of the Anglican Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East. File photo: Andrea Mann/General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada
The Episcopal diocese of Jerusalem has launched an emergency appeal for funds to support its al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, which has been overwhelmed by the number of casualties in the mass protests across the Gaza strip this month.
At least 60 were killed and thousands wounded as Palestinians protested the opening of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem May 14, according to various media reports.
“Our Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza had been literally working around the clock to serve the wounded from the escalating violence in the Gaza Strip ever since the United States formally opened its Embassy in Jerusalem on May 14,” said Archbishop Suheil Dawani, the Anglican Archbishop in Jerusalem and Primate of the Anglican Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East. “The wounded coming to our hospital have no money, but no one is ever turned away. Most of the men, women, and children who are treated at [the hospital] have been injured from live ammunition, rubber bullets and tear gas intoxication.
“I appeal to all our friends around the world to give generously to this humanitarian crisis, as we, the Church, the hands of Jesus in this place, respond to this tragedy in love and compassion to the wounded.”
Of the 2,768 people who were injured, 1,357 suffered gunshot wounds, according to the World Health Organization.
Speaking to the Anglican Alliance, which is helping to co-ordinate the global response to the emergency appeal, the hospital’s director, Suhaila Tarazi, described the situation as “critical.” She said that “the death toll in Gaza continues to rise” and said that the hospital needs “to obtain emergency medicine, medical supplies, and fuel for generators.” The hospital also “needs to support doctors and nurses who are working non-stop to meet the crushing flow of the injured and traumatized.”
Tarazi said that the hospital, as a humanitarian organisation of the Episcopal diocese of Jerusalem, “adopts a rights based approach and provides healthcare to the needy without discrimination of faith, gender, social class or political affiliation.”
The Anglican Alliance is urging people to “keep the people of Gaza, those affected by the violence, and the staff of al-Ahli Arab Hospital in your prayers at this time, and pray for peace, with justice, in the Holy Land.”