Indonesia to evacuate 1,000 injured Palestinians

By Anadolu staff

ANKARA (AA) – Indonesia on Thursday announced that it will evacuate 1,000 victims of the ongoing Israeli military offensive in Gaza for medical treatment in the Southeast Asian country.

The announcement was made by Indonesia’s president-elect Prabowo Subianto at a news conference at the State Palace in Jakarta, local English daily Jakarta Post reported.

"We are taking steps to channel assistance to Palestine. Indonesia has announced … readiness to evacuate 1,000 patients for medical treatment in Indonesia. They will be returned to Gaza after recovering and once the situation there is back to normal," Prabowo was quoted as saying.

"We are also ready to accommodate 1,000 (Palestinian) children suffering from war trauma to study here and return them at the appropriate time," he added.

He further said that Muslim boarding schools in East and West Java have agreed to take care of Palestinian children orphaned by the war.

In addition, Indonesia plans to send doctors and nurses to operate a makeshift field hospital in Gaza.

"If permitted, we will send a Hercules aircraft to drop humanitarian assistance from the air and a floating hospital," he went on to say.

Indonesia, last week, announced that it would be preparing a peacekeeping brigade of 1,212 personnel for deployment in Gaza.

The troops will be deployed if Indonesia receives a mandate from the UN, Indonesian defense forces commander, Gen. Agus Subiyanto, said.

At least 30 more Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip, bringing the overall death toll to 37,232 since Oct. 7, the Health Ministry in the battered enclave said on Thursday.

A ministry statement added that some 85,037 other people have been injured in the onslaught.

Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire.

Over eight months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered Tel Aviv to immediately halt its military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.