Indonesia readies island medical facility for 2,000 injured Gazans
Muslim-majority Indonesia has sent humanitarian aid to Gaza after Israel started an offensive in October 2023 that Gaza health officials say has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, whether fighters or non-combatants.
'Indonesia will give medical help for about 2,000 Gaza residents who became victims of war, those who are wounded, buried under debris,' the spokesperson, Hasan Nasbi, told reporters, adding that the exercise was not an evacuation.
Indonesia plans to allocate the facility on Galang island, off its island of Sumatra and south of Singapore, to treat wounded Gaza residents and temporarily shelter their families, he said, adding that nobody lived around it now.
The patients would be taken back to Gaza after they had healed, he said.
Hasan did not give a timeframe or further details, referring questions to Indonesia's foreign and defense ministries, which did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.
The plan comes months after President Prabowo Subianto's offer to shelter wounded Palestinians drew criticism from Indonesia's top clerics for seeming too close to U.S. President Donald Trump's suggestion of permanently moving Palestinians out of Gaza.
In response to Trump's suggestion, the foreign ministry of Indonesia, which backs a two-state solution to resolve the Middle East crisis, said at the time it 'strongly rejects any attempt to forcibly displace Palestinians.'
A hospital to treat victims of the COVID-19 pandemic opened in 2020 on Galang, which had been until 1996 a sprawling refugee camp run by the United Nations, housing 250,000 of those who fled the Vietnam War.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Al Arabiya
38 minutes ago
- Al Arabiya
Germany's halt to arms exports to Israel is response to Gaza expansion plans: Merz
Germany's decision to curb arms exports to Israel comes in response to Israel's plan to expand its operations in the Gaza Strip, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Sunday in an interview with public broadcaster ARD. 'We cannot deliver weapons into a conflict that is now being pursued exclusively by military means,' Merz said. 'We want to help diplomatically, and we are doing so.' The worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza and Israel's plans to expand military control over the enclave have pushed Germany to take this historically fraught step. The chancellor said in the interview that the expansion of Israel's operations in Gaza could claim hundreds of thousands of civilian lives and would require the evacuation of the entire city of Gaza. 'Where are these people supposed to go?' Merz said. 'We can't do that, we won't do that, and I will not do that.' Nevertheless, the principles of Germany's Israel policy remain unchanged, the chancellor said. 'Germany has stood firmly by Israel's side for 80 years. That will not change,' Merz said. Germany is Israel's second-biggest weapons supplier after the US and has long been one of its staunchest supporters, principally because of its historical guilt for the Nazi Holocaust – a policy known as the 'Staatsraison.'
Arab News
an hour ago
- Arab News
Trump wants to evict homeless from Washington and send them ‘far from the capital'
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump pledged on Sunday to evict homeless people from the nation's capital and jail criminals, despite Washington's mayor arguing there is no current spike in crime. 'The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY. We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital. The Criminals, you don't have to move out. We're going to put you in jail where you belong,' Trump posted on the Truth Social platform. The White House declined to explain what legal authority Trump would use to evict people from Washington. The Republican president controls only federal land and buildings in the city. Trump is planning to hold a press conference on Monday to 'stop violent crime in Washington, D.C.' It was not clear whether he would announce more details about his eviction plan then. Trump's Truth Social post included pictures of tents and D.C. streets with some garbage on them. 'I'm going to make our Capital safer and more beautiful than it ever was before,' he said. According to the Community Partnership, an organization working to reduce homelessness in D.C., on any given night there are 3,782 single persons experiencing homelessness in the city of about 700,000 people. Most of the homeless individuals are in emergency shelters or transitional housing. About 800 are considered unsheltered or 'on the street,' the organization says. A White House official said on Friday that more federal law enforcement officers were being deployed in the city following a violent attack on a young Trump administration staffer that angered the president. The Democratic mayor of Washington, D.C., Muriel Bowser, said on Sunday the capital was 'not experiencing a crime spike.' 'It is true that we had a terrible spike in crime in 2023, but this is not 2023,' Bowser said on MSNBC's The Weekend. 'We have spent over the last two years driving down violent crime in this city, driving it down to a 30-year low.' The city's police department reports that violent crime in the first seven months of 2025 was down by 26 percent in D.C. compared with last year while overall crime was down about 7 percent. Bowser said Trump is 'very aware' of the city's work with federal law enforcement after meeting with Trump several weeks ago in the Oval Office. The US Congress has control of D.C.'s budget after the district was established in 1790 with land from neighboring Virginia and Maryland, but resident voters elect a mayor and city council. For Trump to take over the city, Congress likely would have to pass a law revoking the law that established local elected leadership, which Trump would have to sign. Bowser on Sunday noted the president's ability to call up the National Guard if he wanted, a tactic the administration used recently in Los Angeles after immigration protests over the objections of local officials.
Al Arabiya
an hour ago
- Al Arabiya
Germany's Merz assumes Zelenskyy will join Trump-Putin summit
Germany assumes that Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will attend a summit between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin next Friday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Sunday. Putin and Trump will meet in the US state of Alaska on Friday to try to resolve the three-year conflict between Russia and Ukraine, despite pleas from Ukraine and Europe that Kyiv must be part of negotiations. 'We hope and assume that the government of Ukraine, that President Zelenskyy will be involved in this meeting,' Merz said in an interview with broadcaster ARD. Merz told ARD that Berlin was working closely with Washington to try to ensure Zelenskyy's attendance at the talks. 'We cannot accept in any case that territorial questions are discussed or even decided between Russia and America over the heads of Europeans and Ukrainians,' he said. 'I assume that the American government sees it the same way.' Merz added that he hoped that the talks could make significant progress towards a peace settlement and even produce a 'breakthrough.' 'We hope that there will be a breakthrough on Friday,' he said. 'Above all (we hope) that there will finally be a ceasefire and that there can be peace negotiations in Ukraine.' Three rounds of talks between Russia and Ukraine this year have failed to bear fruit. Tens of thousands of people have been killed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, with millions forced to flee their homes. Putin, a former KGB officer who has held power in Russia for more than 25 years, has ruled out holding talks with Zelenskyy at this stage. He insists the invasion was necessary to protect Russian speakers in Ukraine as well as Russia's security. Ukraine's leader has been pushing for a three-way summit and argues that meeting Putin is the only way to make progress towards peace.
