March 17, 2025
JAKARTA – The groundbreaking of the Indonesian Women and Children’s Hospital in the Gaza Strip is scheduled to take place sometime next month, Foreign Ministry officials and Palestinian civil society groups announced in a press conference in Jakarta on Friday.
More than 30 organizations are ready to support the Rp 402 billion (US$24.6 million) project, they said.
The four-storey hospital building, which is part of the Indonesian National Campaign for Palestine launched by Deputy Foreign Minister Anis Matta last month, will be built on a 5,000-square-meter plot of land held in a waqf in the Nasser neighborhood of Gaza following an agreement with the Palestinian Health Ministry in April of last year.
“The development of the Indonesian Women and Children’s Hospital in Gaza is not just a health infrastructure project but a manifestation of sincere Indonesian solidarity with Palestine,” said Onny Firyanti Hamidi, the head of philanthropic group Maemuna Center Indonesia.
Maemuna Center, together with the Aqsa Working Group, initiated the project early last year amid Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, which destroyed much of the enclave’s health infrastructure.
Data from the United Nations Human Rights Office (OHCHR) indicate that women and children have made up nearly 70 percent of Gaza’s dead since Oct. 7, 2023, when a deadly raid on Israel by Palestinian armed group Hamas was answered with a massive military reprisal by Tel Aviv. Over 1,100 Israelis and 62,600 Gazans have died since the attack.
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Representatives from the civil groups told reporters that Indonesian volunteers would make up 75 percent of the workforce building the hospital. They would enter Gaza through the Rafah crossing as per an agreement with Egyptian authorities.
An advance team would be sent to Gaza in late March or early April, they said, adding that the fragility of the current ceasefire agreement remained one of their biggest concerns.
“We have been planning the construction of the hospital for a while now, including the groundbreaking agenda. We are still currently in contact with Egyptian authorities, and the plan will go according to plan if the situation allows,” said Aqsa Working Group (AWG) executive M. Anshorullah at the same briefing.
In January, Israel and Hamas came to a long-awaited ceasefire agreement that included three six-week phases widely hoped to provide respite for Palestinians following fifteen months of besiegement and violence.
However, Israel has been accused of breaking the terms of the ceasefire in its first month, and recent statements by United States President Donald Trump have raised concerns that the country may try to take possession of the enclave.
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The Foreign Ministry’s Middle East director, Ahrul Tsani Fathurrahman, told reporters that Jakarta remained in close contact with Gaza’s regional neighbors to ensure that humanitarian aid and other missions, including the construction of the hospital, could take place with minimal difficulty.
“We are in close communication with Palestine’s neighbors, including Jordan and Egypt, as well as international humanitarian organizations in Gaza that Indonesia has been actively donating to,” Ahrul said.
In 2016, several pro-Palestine groups in Indonesia came together to crowdfund the Indonesian Hospital in Gaza, located in the enclave’s Northern city of Beit Lahia.
However, the Indonesian Hospital was declared out of service by the Gaza Health Ministry in early January, following months of bombardment by Israeli, as it suspected that the hospital sat on top of a secret Hamas underground tunnel.
In early January, only 16 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals remained partially operational, according to data from the UN.