Urgent Appeal for Church in Wales
Gaza Clinic Fund
The Church in Wales is actively involved in humanitarian work in Gaza City through a mobile dental clinic which is solely funded by the people of Wales through the Church in Wales Jubilee Fund.
The dental clinic van, with its Welsh red-dragon stickers, is a familiar sight in Gaza City where it has provided free dental care as part of the healthcare services run by the Christian Near East Council of Churches (NECC), the second-largest NGO based in Gaza. The NECC’s vision is for a Palestinian society where people receive adequate health and educational services and enjoy better quality of life.
The dental clinic is based at the Shij'ia Family Health Care Centre. Now, a direct hit from missiles fired by an Israeli air-force jet has completely destroyed the building and its contents, including hundreds of thousands of pounds of medical equipment. No reason for the attack was given. There are fears that the dental clinic was also destroyed. [For more recent news see here]
In a letter to the Israeli Ambassador in London, the Archbishop of Wales said, “We find it incomprehensible and tragic that any armed forces anywhere in the world would want to destroy such a building, let alone the State of Israel with all its historic memories of oppression and genocide.
“To hear the news that the only health facilities in this part of Gaza have been destroyed, leaving the population of that area without any medical facilities at all, is horrendous.
"It does raise questions about the credibility of Israel’s values and purposes.
“There were 10, 836 families registered at this Shij’ia Clinic. They have effectively been removed of any hope of medical provision and support. It provided ante and post natal care, a well baby clinic, basic laboratory tests for malnutrition and anaemia, a pharmacy, and the mobile dental clinic which is funded by the Church in Wales. It is hard to understand why Israel would allow, let alone commission, an attack on a facility which provides support mostly to young babies and their mothers.
“We have no reason to believe that this building was producing or distributing arms or being used as a base or launch pad for rockets sent into Israel. If there is evidence to the contrary we would like to see it. We are perplexed and shocked at this attack and are looking for an explanation for it from the Israeli Ambassador. ”
The Archdeacon of Margam, the Ven Philip Morris, who co-ordinates the Church in Wales Jubilee Fund for the NECC mobile dental clinic, said, "This is devastating news; we can only be thankful that nobody was killed or injured in the attack. I have visited the Family Health Centre on many occasions; it is very clearly marked as a Health Centre, and it is very obvious what its work is. However, this means that the front-line emergency care can no longer be given in that area of Gaza City.”
The NECC describes its work as “an injection of hope – touching people, healing them, and giving them hope.” The Church in Wales, through its funding of the Dental Clinic, sees itself as being part of that work, without any political agenda, simply providing humanitarian aid where it is needed, as it has done in many other parts of the world through the Jubilee Fund.
You can contribute to that work by sending contributions, marked 'for Gaza clinic' and made payable to 'the Church in Wales Jubilee Fund', to The Church in Wales, 39, Cathedral Rd, Cardiff, CF11 9XF