Salsabeel Salhab is a 19-year-old volunteer paramedic working with the Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS) in the Bethlehem governorate. Alongside this, she works with her father in the family business. Salsabeel began volunteering when she was just 14 years old, after PMRS teams came to her school and introduced the students to their work....

Abed Almuhdi Ghareeb is a 25-year-old paramedic and coordinator of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS) ambulance teams and volunteers in Bethlehem governorate. He also works as youth project coordinator in the southern districts and suburbs of Jerusalem. Abed Almuhdi lives in Dheisheh refugee camp and began volunteering with PMRS when he...

Manal is a 6-year-old girl from Jabalia refugee camp in the north of the Gaza Strip. She had surgery back in July 2019 to remove a type of cancer called a neuroblastoma. Afterwards, she needed intensive chemotherapy only available outside the Gaza Strip and had to apply for Israeli-issued permits to exit for treatment. She received her initial...

Asrar, from Jabalia in the north of Gaza Strip, was diagnosed with a bone cancer called an osteosarcoma in her left lower leg in April 2018. She required radiotherapy, only available outside the Gaza Strip. From October 2018, Asrar attended Tel Hashomer Hospital, east of Jaffa, where she underwent extensive investigations, amputation of her leg,...

June 17 2020, Jerusalem – A substantial delivery of personal protective equipment and medical items was supplied today by the European Union and the World Health Organization to the East Jerusalem Hospitals Network (EJHN) to support preparedness for COVID-19. At the hand over event at Augusta Victoria Hospital, the European Union’s Representative...

Following suspension of permit processing and coordination, Palestinian patients face additional difficulties to accessing healthcare. Before March, there were more than 1,750 permit applications each month for Gaza patients and more than 7,000 permit applications each month for West Bank patients, though this number reduced drastically during the...

In early April 2020, 56-year-old paediatric nurse Awatef Handal was called by her employer Caritas Baby Hospital in Bethlehem in the West Bank to assist with a suspected case of COVID-19, a boy from Hebron district. As the on-call nurse was Awatef’s job to stay with the young boy while he had a test taken for COVID-19. “It was very stressful,...

In 2004, the community of Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip was closed off during a military incursion and pregnant women could not reach hospitals to deliver their babies, until Feeza Shraim and her other volunteer health workers were able to help.Feeza is a midwife from Beit Hanoun with 13 children and 30 years’ experience in nursing and...

April 9 2020, Jerusalem – The World Health Organization today thanked the Austrian Development Cooperation for its €250,000 contribution to support the WHO’s response to COVID-19 in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). The world is facing an unprecedented challenge with communities and economies everywhere affected by the growing COVID-19...

5 March 2020, Gaza Strip - Today the World Health Organization in partnership with the Ministry of Health launched a Limb Reconstruction Centre for Gaza Strip, providing hundreds of Palestinians injured with gunshot wounds, with permanent specialized and centralised care.  Based at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis and generously funded with UK aid, EU...