The popemobile used by the late Pope Francis during his visit to Bethlehem in 2014 arrived in the West Bank town on Tuesday, transformed into a traveling clinic bound for Gaza, but Israeli authorities have not yet given the green light for the vehicle to enter the Strip. Bethlehem converts it.
Francis has spoken several times about the suffering of Gazans in the face of Israel’s brutal offensive after the October 7 Hamas attacks, and has called the parish priest Gabriel Romanelli of the Holy Family Church in the devastated city of Gaza almost every day.
The means of transport presented today was christened in May, when it was announced that sooner or later it would be used as a “vehicle of hope”, and was enabled to provide assistance on the front line in a war zone. Its use will be purely pediatric, reports Cáritas, the body that coordinated the initiative. The clinic in question will be equipped with rapid tests, suture kits, syringes, oxygen supplies, vaccines and a small refrigerator to store drugs.
This is a Mitsubishi brand vehicle in which up to four healthcare workers would be working at the same time and which has been stripped of any kind of accessories on the dashboard – no navigation screen or radio -, without logos on the front or on the hubcaps, and with all the finishes in the usual austere-looking shade of white. Furthermore, his nickname – “vehicle of hope” -, the words “mobile clinic” and the slogan “We put love into action”, associated with Cáritas, are silk-screened on the sides in English; as well as the logos of this entity, of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem and of the Palestinian National Authority, which allowed the arrival of the car in the West Bank.
“At the moment its entry into Gaza (with Israel) is being negotiated. The idea is that it will join the other ten mobile clinics that Caritas already has in the Strip and which were damaged during the two years of war. It would start to coordinate with them to see where it would be most useful,” Caritas Internationalis general secretary Alistair Dutton told the media. During the presentation event, to which a girl from Gaza went to bring a small floral offering to the cardinal, the media and the dozen Catholic faithful present were not allowed access to the interior of the vehicle, which was always protected by a quadrangular glass structure.
The event took place in the open-air courtyard of a café very close to the Basilica of the Nativity, declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Also present was Dr. Ramzi Khoury, president of the Palestinian National Fund, who described the arrival of the former popemobile as a “path to peace” and “understanding between Christians and Muslims in Palestine.”
According to the Gaza government, Israel has killed 69,756 Gazans – including more than 20,000 children – and 170,946 have been injured since it began its military offensive more than two years ago, now under a ceasefire in which deaths continue to occur every day.
