Indonesia Announces Plans to Treat 2,000 Injured Gazan Civilians
The ruins of a UNHCR office in the location of the former refugee camp on Galang Island, Indonesia, December 19, 2025.
Indonesia's government has announced plans to convert a medical facility at a former refugee camp in the Riau Islands, to treat about 2,000 residents of Gaza who have been injured during the Israeli assaults on the territory.
'The president has given instructions for Indonesia to provide medical assistance for around 2,000 Gazans who are victims of war, including those wounded by bombs or the rubble … as well as their family members,' Hasan Nasbi told reporters yesterday, according to the Jakarta Globe.
Hasan Nasbi said that the injured would be treated on Galang Island, part of the Riau Archipelago close to Indonesia's maritime border with Singapore, and then would return home once they had recovered.
From 1975 to 1996, Galang accommodated around 250,000 refugees from Indochina, most of them from Vietnam, who had fled communist persecution by sea. The island is now mostly uninhabited, but in 2020, the government opened a hospital on Galang to treat COVID-19 patients. In 2023, it was briefly mooted as a location for temporarily housing Rohingya refugees arriving by boat from Myanmar and Bangladesh.
'We intend to set up the medical treatment center in Galang Island because it already has a hospital, as well as the supporting facilities,' Hasan said yesterday, adding that the island is 'also separated from our citizens residing in other [neighboring] islands.' As Reuters reported, Hasan did not provide a timeframe or any further details about the plan, but these will presumably be made public soon.
Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation, has long supported the Palestinian cause and has been harshly critical of Israel's brutal offensive in Gaza since the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023. In 2011, Indonesia built a hospital in Beit Lahia in north Gaza from money donated by the public. After the start of Israel's offensive, the Indonesian Hospital was overrun with patients but has since been severely damaged. In January, the Gaza Health Ministry declared that the hospital was out of service due to significant structural damage sustained in what the U.N. later described as 'repeated Israeli attacks.'
The idea of providing medical treatment to Palestinians was first raised by President Prabowo Subianto during a five-nation tour of the Middle East in April, when he said that Indonesia was 'ready to evacuate those who are injured or traumatized, and orphans, if they want to be evacuated to Indonesia.'
'Indonesia's commitment in supporting the safety of Palestinians and their independence has pushed our government to act more actively,' Prabowo said.
However, it is politically necessary for the Indonesian government to emphasize that the relocations will only be temporary, in order to avoid the impression that Jakarta is abetting a permanent resettlement of Gaza's population. Indeed, when Prabowo initially suggested that Indonesia might take in injured Gazans, some Islamic clerics argued that a temporary transfer could easily evolve into a permanent one. Israeli officials have hinted at the mass deportation of Gazans from the territory, a policy that was seemingly endorsed by U.S. President Donald trump in February, when he suggested that the territory should be transformed into a 'Riviera of the Middle East.'
Along with its counterpart in Malaysia, Indonesia's foreign ministry said at the time that it 'strongly rejects any attempt to forcibly displace Palestinians' from Gaza.
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