A medical point in Gaza run by Caritas Jerusalem
Amid immense challenges, your support has helped CAFOD’s partners to reopen their main medical centre to deliver life-saving care to those in urgent need.
This extraordinary achievement is part of a wider, courageous response — sharing aid, dignity and hope with people across Gaza, and thanks to people like you CAFOD partners are ready to scale up the moment access for humanitarian aid is allowed.
Despite overwhelming challenges, CAFOD’s local partners continue to deliver vital support to those in greatest need. Amid widespread destruction, increasingly limited access to aid, and the ongoing threat of bombardment and repeated displacement, thanks to your support our partners in Gaza are doing what many would consider impossible. Their courage and unwavering dedication ensure that life-saving assistance reaches communities facing unimaginable challenges. It is a powerful reminder of what solidarity and humanitarian aid can achieve.
Our staff in Gaza are facing human and personal tragedy and suffering every day. Yet their extreme resilience and commitment enable them to help and support people in great distress around them. Their strength stands as a quiet act of resistance and humanity.
Medical centre reopened amid destruction
At the start of the crisis in late 2023 CAFOD’s local Church partner, Caritas Jerusalem, was forced to close its main medical centre in Gaza due to safety concerns, after the building was later severely damaged by bombardments. Rebuilding it seemed impossible due to blocked aid and ongoing bombardment. But during a brief ceasefire earlier this year, the team were able to bring in vital equipment and make urgent repairs.
With support from people like you, the centre opened its doors in May and is now providing maternal healthcare, malnutrition treatment and training for frontline health workers - many of whom travel across Gaza to reach patients cut off from medical services. This shows what we can achieve when we work together, despite the extreme challenges our teams are facing.
Alongside the main centre, Caritas is also operating 10 medical points across Gaza, treating chronic illnesses, running pharmacies (though dangerously low on supplies), and supporting families mentally and physically through this crisis. The Caritas team is constantly adapting to changing circumstances and moving the location of their mobile clinics depending on where it's safest to operate.
Supporting children in crisis
CAFOD has worked for many years with Christian, Jewish, Muslim and secular partners in both the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) and Israel. The Culture and Free Thought Association (CFTA), one of CAFOD’s Gazan partners, continues to serve its community – providing food, education and recreational activities for children.
Before October 2023, CFTA ran various centres across Gaza – providing cultural, educational, health and wellbeing services to Palestinian people and their communities.
Sadly, at the start of the crisis several of their centres were damaged, leading to temporary closures in some areas. Both staff and communities have experienced displacement and the loss of loved ones. Despite this, with your help, they continue to provide vital support. In May alone, CFTA managed to distribute up to 2,000 meals a day, despite severe food shortages. During the ceasefire earlier this year, they also provided welcoming points for displaced families – distributing essential aid such as water, blankets and dignity kits – and a wall art project – for people to paint during the long wait time when entering different areas of Gaza.
Even without fully operational centres they are providing emotional comfort for the young people in Gaza who are going through so much. In makeshift classrooms in displacement camps, children have gathered for maths, English and Arabic lessons, storytelling sessions, art therapy and play. These are small spaces of normality, giving them a sense of routine and creativity amid the chaos and destruction that surrounds them. They also provide a sense of hope that their educational future has not been lost.
Mobile hope: A gift from Pope Francis
In the final months of his life, Pope Francis asked Caritas to repurpose the popemobile used for his visit to Bethlehem in 2014 into a mobile health clinic for children in Gaza. Refitted with everything needed for frontline care in a war zone it is ready to enter Gaza as soon as humanitarian access is restored.
Pope Leo has continued to call for peace throughout his papacy, with particular attention on Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory. At his first general audience in St Peter's Square in May he appealed: “We ask for dignified humanitarian aid and an end to hostilities, whose heartbreaking price is paid by children, the elderly and the sick.” He continues to urge the world not to forget Gaza, even amid escalating conflicts elsewhere in the region.
Access to unrestricted humanitarian aid
There have been widespread calls for the US-Israeli imposed and run humanitarian assistance to revert back to existing UN-led coordination. Summer temperatures in Gaza are rising and with a severe lack of food and water, many people are too weak to make the journey to collect food from distribution hubs which are further away, and where the UN says people have been killed by Israeli forces while trying to access aid.
CAFOD continues to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, unrestricted aid at scale, and a halt to UK arms sales to Israel. Peace is urgently needed so that people can begin to rebuild their lives in safety and with hope and dignity.
Help us be there
Even under constant threat, your continued support means CAFOD partners can provide a lifeline to those in need – delivering medical care, food and dignity amid uncertainty and fear.
A better world needs all of us - together we can do even more. To scale up aid access, the world must act — now.