NEW DELHI: India has signed a memorandum of understanding with Palestinian authorities to build a specialty hospital in the West Bank, following an international appeal for urgent healthcare assistance made by the Palestinian Embassy in New Delhi.
On Wednesday, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa and Sripriya Ranganathan, India’s vice minister of external affairs, participated in a groundbreaking ceremony for the 200-bed Indian Super Specialty Hospital in Jenin.
“The hospital will have multiple specialties, including a trauma center, and is expected to strengthen access to advanced and specialized medical services, particularly for communities in Jenin and the northern West Bank,” the Indian mission in Palestine said in a statement on Thursday.
After almost three years of Israeli forces causing widespread destruction and openly targeting healthcare facilities across Gaza, only 19 out of 36 hospitals are partially operational in the besieged enclave as of June, data from the World Health Organization showed.
The occupied West Bank is also facing an escalating healthcare crisis, with over 11,000 scheduled surgeries postponed this year due to severe shortages in medicines and medical supplies.
In June, the Palestinian Embassy in India appealed to the international community and the Indian government in particular to “urgently act to support” the health system in Palestine.
It raised “profound concern over the catastrophic collapse of the healthcare sector in the occupied Palestinian territory as a direct result of the ongoing Israeli genocidal war,” which has killed more than 73,400 Palestinians and injured over 174,300 others.
Ranganathan, who concluded her visit to Palestine on Thursday, also met with Health Minister Maged Abu Ramadan to hand over a consignment of essential medicines and discuss other health-related cooperation, including India’s plan to organize a prosthetic limb camp and the donation of a mobile health center for use in Gaza.
Indian diplomacy in the West Bank this week comes amid increasingly closer ties between India and Israel under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as Delhi gradually moves away from its historic support for Palestine, an important part of India’s foreign policy for decades.
India has largely remained quiet since Israel launched its assault on Gaza in October 2023. But while still under British rule in the 1920s and 1930s, it strongly identified with the Palestinian struggle for independence and was among the nations that opposed the creation of Israel in 1948.
“To set up a multi-specialty hospital in the West Bank and Palestine is very good. But what the Modi regime needs to do is stop arming Israel and being complicit in the genocide of the Palestinian people,” Feroze Mithiborwala, founder and director of the India-Palestine Solidarity Forum, told Arab News.
He referred to a July report from Amnesty International, which said that India has continued to supply weapons and ammunition to Israel, citing at least 2,596 shipments since Oct. 7, 2023.
“These are not the values rooted in our anti-colonial struggle,” Mithiborwala said.
“India should help the Palestinian people and stop sending weapons and manufacturing weapons for Israel. It’s as simple as that.”
