Indonesia is preparing to convert a medical facility on its uninhabited Galang Island into a treatment center for around 2,000 wounded residents of Gaza, a presidential spokesperson confirmed on Thursday. The humanitarian effort will provide medical care to those injured in the ongoing conflict, with patients returning to Gaza after recovery.
The initiative comes as part of Indonesia’s continued support for Palestinians amid the devastating war that erupted in October 2023, following Israel’s military offensive. According to Gaza health officials, the conflict has claimed the lives of more than 60,000 Palestinians, including both fighters and civilians.
“Indonesia will give medical help for about 2,000 Gaza residents who became victims of war, those who are wounded, buried under debris,” said presidential spokesperson Hasan Nasbi. He clarified that this plan was not an evacuation but a temporary humanitarian intervention.
Galang Island, located off Sumatra and south of Singapore, is currently uninhabited. The facility there was originally set up in 2020 as a COVID-19 hospital. Decades earlier, until 1996, the island was home to a vast UN-run refugee camp that sheltered more than 250,000 Vietnamese fleeing the Vietnam War. Under the new plan, the hospital will treat wounded Palestinians and temporarily accommodate their families during the recovery process.
Hasan did not specify when the first patients would arrive or how the transfer would be coordinated, directing such questions to Indonesia’s foreign and defense ministries, which have yet to release further details.
The move follows President Prabowo Subianto’s earlier proposal to provide shelter for wounded Palestinians—an idea that faced criticism from some Indonesian clerics, who feared it could be misconstrued as supporting permanent displacement, similar to a controversial suggestion made by former U.S. President Donald Trump.
Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, has long supported a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and has strongly opposed any attempts to permanently resettle Palestinians outside their homeland. The government has emphasized that the Galang Island initiative is purely temporary, with the aim of restoring the health and dignity of war victims before they return home.
This latest humanitarian mission underscores Indonesia’s longstanding commitment to Palestine and its willingness to leverage both its resources and historical experience in sheltering war-affected populations.
