https://arab.news/b3qt3
- Group comprises doctors, nurses, midwives, other medics
- They are scheduled to serve 4 months on the Gaza mission
Jakarta: The Indonesian military is dispatching 40 health workers to Gaza as a part of its humanitarian assistance to the enclave’s people, with the first group set to reach a UAE floating hospital in Egypt on Friday, before transfer to Rafah.
Indonesia has been one of the most vocal countries opposing Israel’s ongoing deadly invasion of Gaza and demanding an end to its occupation of Palestine.
Since the beginning of Tel Aviv’s daily bombardment of the besieged enclave in October, Indonesian authorities and people have sent several shipments with hundreds of tonnes of aid.
The first group of healthcare workers includes 25 doctors, nurses, midwives and other medical staff.
“What is happening in Gaza, in the Middle East, pierces our humanity,” Indonesian President-elect and Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto said at a pre-departure briefing in Jakarta on Wednesday evening.
“Indonesia must show solidarity, its humanitarian responsibility to defend the spirit of independence, the right for a nation to live and determine their own fate, free of oppression.”
“I thank you all for your willingness to serve. Good luck everyone,” Subianto said.
While there is a plan to transfer more than a dozen of the military health personnel to the UAE field hospital in Rafah, that part of the mission depends on the security situation in Gaza’s southern city, said Maj. Gen. Ujang Darwis, the ministry’s director-general of defense strategy.
The Indonesian military will dispatch the second group of personnel from Jakarta after the first “safely arrives” at the Rafah field hospital, Darwis said in a report to Subianto.
The Indonesian health workers will serve four months on the mission, rotating their shifts between the floating hospital in Egypt and the field hospital in Rafah.