The Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital was built and equipped by the
Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency
The Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency ( tr, Türk İşbirliği ve Koordinasyon İdaresi Başkanlığı, ) is a government department subordinate to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism (Turkey). Focusing on development cooperation, TİK ...
(TİKA). The construction of the hospital started in 2010 during the
premiership of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (born 26 February 1954) is a Turkish politician serving as the List of presidents of Turkey, 12th and current president of Turkey since 2014. He previously served as prime minister of Turkey from 2003 to 2014 and as Lis ...
when the Board of Trustees of the
Islamic University of Gaza
The Islamic University of Gaza ( ar, الجامعة الإسلامية بغزة), also known as IUG and IU Gaza, is an independent Palestinian university established in 1978 in Gaza City. It was the first higher education institution to be establ ...
requested that a training and research hospital be built for the university in the Gaza Strip.
TİKA was subsequently instructed to build the Palestine-Turkey Friendship Hospital, where construction began in 2011 and was completed in 2017 at a total cost of 70 million US dollars.
Facilities
The hospital was built at the campus of the Faculty of Medicine at the Islamic University of Gaza, which is located south of
Gaza City
Gaza (;''The New Oxford Dictionary of English'' (1998), , p. 761 "Gaza Strip /'gɑːzə/ a strip of territory in Palestine, on the SE Mediterranean coast including the town of Gaza...". ar, غَزَّة ', ), also referred to as Gaza City, i ...
. It has a total interior space of 33,400 sq. meters and consists of 8 interconnected blocks, with 4 operating rooms, intensive care units, laboratories, and 200 beds. In its full capacity, the hospital can serve up to 30000 patients annually, as well as provide health training for 500 medical students, 800 nursing students, and 400 allied health services students per year.
Operation
In the wake of the
COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...
pandemic in 2020, the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital was transferred to Palestinian authorities to operate as a COVID-19 isolation and treatment facility. A provisional deed of transfer was issued and signed by TİKA and the Rectorate of the Islamic University of Gaza for the transfer of the hospital, upon which the hospital was transferred fully to Gaza authorities on March 26, 2020.
In November 2021, as the COVID-19 pandemic began to subside, the Gaza Ministry of Health began relocating oncology and oncology-related services from the different governmental hospitals in the Gaza Strip to the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital in a bid to "unify the diagnostic and treatment services in one specialized and integrated center".
The Hospital currently operates under a joint administration from IUG and the MoH.
During the
2023 Israel–Hamas war
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The ongoing armed conflict between Hamas-led Palestinian militant groups and Israel military forces began on 7 October 2023, 50 years after the start of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Hamas's coordinated surprise offensive, codenamed "Al-Aqsa Fl ...
, and amid the
October 2023 Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip
On 9 October 2023, Israel imposed a "total blockade" of the Gaza Strip, blocking the entry of food, water, medicine, fuel and electricity. The blockade came in response to the beginning of the 2023 Israel–Hamas war and attacks in Israel ...
, the hospital was forced to shut down, despite being Gaza's only cancer hospital, after running out of fuel.
Gallery
File:Southern entrance.jpg, A look at the southern entrance of the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital and the IUG Faculty of Medicine. The TIKA logo can be seen on the main entrance.
File:North east view.jpg, The Hospital and the IUG Faculty of Medicine buildings as the appear in an aerial view taken from the north-east.
File:View of the hospital from the north.jpg, View of the hospital from the north
File:Outpatient clinics entrance.jpg, Outpatient clinics entrance
References
{{coord missing, Gaza Strip
Hospitals in Gaza City