RAMALLAH, Palestine/ ISTANBUL

The West Bank city of Bethlehem is preparing to send the popemobile of late Pope Francis to the Gaza Strip after transforming it into a mobile clinic to be used to treat Palestinian children injured in Israel’s genocidal war.

“The Vehicle of Hope is a great wish that we hope will reach Gaza to serve its children and families,” Father Ibrahim Faltas, adviser to the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, said during an event attended by religious and community figures in Bethlehem.

“This is the car that Pope Francis used during his 2014 visit to Bethlehem,” he said. “Today, we hope it will become a humanitarian tool to treat the wounded.”

Faltas explained that Pope Francis “showed great concern for the Holy Land and had a deep affection for Gaza in particular.”

“Despite his illness, he continued to communicate daily with the parish in Gaza to check on them,” he added.

He cited that the late pope met last February with a group of Gazan children who had been treated in Italy, saying he admired their intelligence and was delighted to meet them.

Pointing out that thousands of children in Gaza urgently need medical care after the Israeli war, he stressed that “Palestine needs all forms of support, and children in Gaza, specifically, are in desperate need of treatment.”

Faltas did not specify when the popemobile will arrive in Gaza, but expressed hope that it would be soon.

In May, the Italian news agency ANSA reported that before his death on April 21, Pope Francis had asked Caritas, the Catholic Church’s charitable organization, to use one of the popemobiles he typically used to greet crowds to meet the medical needs of children in Gaza.

The agency added that the vehicle, which will be supplied with a driver and a doctor, and will carry equipment for diagnosis, examination, and treatment, as well as rapid infection tests, injections, and syringes.

Since October 2023, the Israeli army has killed nearly 70,000 people, mostly women and children, and injured nearly 171,000 others in a two-day war in Gaza that has also reduced much of the enclave to rubble. The brutal assault came to a halt under a ceasefire deal that took effect on Oct. 10.