Bethlehem: Cruel IDF shuts down centre for disabled children

Source: Action around Bethlehem Children with Disability

The ABCD Bethlehem-supported Rehabilitation Centre in Nur Shams Refugee Camp in the northern West Bank has been closed until further notice as part of the enforced evacuation of the UNRWA-run camp over the past two weeks. The Centre was offering life-changing therapies on a weekly basis to around 65 children and their families.

The IDF have now confirmed that the camp has been emptied of its 13,500 residents, including 4,400 children, and that there are no plans to allow them to return to their homes. No provision has been made for resettlement and the refugees are left to the mercy of extended family and strangers in the middle of winter.

The Centre which stands at a strategic point near the entrance to the camp has been raided and damaged by IDF soldiers on three separate occasions since the beginning of the conflict on 7 October 2023.

Canon Daniel Burton, Vicar of St Mary with St Peter, Oldham, and Hon Canon of Manchester CoE Cathedral, who is Chair of ABCD Trustees said: "It is particularly cruel and ironic that Nur Shams Centre managed to stay open throughout the conflict, despite three separate raids on the building, but has now been forced to close only since the cease-fire began in Gaza. While the world's attention has been rightly focused on the events in Gaza, Palestinians in the West Bank have faced continued restrictions and increasingly extreme forms of collective punishment. Three UNRWA-run camps on the West Bank have now been emptied of their residents - an unprecedented attack on Palestinian refugees - and a cruel blow to the children and families that we support."

The director of the centre who cannot be named to protect her identity was not available for comment this week. ABCD project manager Firas Sarhan said: "We are trying to establish contact with our staff on the ground to identify new, remote ways of supporting these vulnerable children and their families."

Nur Shams Centre is one of six rehabilitation centres in UNRWA-run refugee camps supported by the UK-based charity ABCD Bethlehem.

Founded in 1986, ABCD is dedicated to supporting the provision of holistic rehabilitation for children with disabilities across Palestine, primarily through partners in the West Bank. Holistic rehabilitation involves the provision of comprehensive individual strategies to address the needs of children with disabilities to achieve quality of life that is free, as far as possible, from medical complication. It includes elements of physiotherapy; occupational therapy; medical intervention; nursing care; social work; psychological, emotional and family support; education; and play therapy.

ABCD achieves this by raising money to fund specific projects and outreach programmes that are planned in consultation with and implemented through its partners in Palestine. ABCD is an incorporated, UK-registered charity (Charity Number 1097623, Company Number 04383155).

See also: 9 January 2024: Holy Land: Israeli army wrecks centre for children with disabilities www.indcatholicnews.com/news/48880

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ABCD Bethlehem website: www.abcdbethlehem.org

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