St. Joseph's Hospital, Jerusalem

Last updated
Main entrance to the hospital Saint Joseph Hospital entrance.jpg
Main entrance to the hospital
Entrance to the hospital in 1967 Allenby Bridge (997009325058805171.jpg
Entrance to the hospital in 1967

St. Joseph's Hospital is a Catholic general hospital in East Jerusalem, established in 1956 at the initiative of the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Apparition, as a replacement for their St. Louis Hospital that remained on the Israeli side of divided Jerusalem, following the 1949 Armistice Agreements.

Contents

The hospital is part of the East Jerusalem Hospitals Network, which is part of the Palestinian health care system in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The hospital also occasionally treats patients from the Gaza strip. [1]

History

Sisters of St. Joseph of the Apparition established in 1851 the St. Louis Hospital near Jerusalem's old city wall; to serve the poor and destitute, to provide assistance to every patient regardless of religion or race, gender or culture, lifestyle or economic status, serving all who turn to it.

Following the armistice agreements at the end of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the border between Israel and Jordan was established near the hospital, and it remained on the Israeli side close to the municipal border line, and access to it was denied to residents of the Old City and East Jerusalem. Therefore, it was decided to establish a new hospital in the east of the city, in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.

The construction of the hospital began in 1954 and was completed in 1956. The hospital's first manager was Lorand Gaspar, a French engineer, surgeon and poet, who moved to Jerusalem to manage the construction. [2]

The hospital is located in the northern part of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, located on a plot between the Nablus Road to the west, Raghib al-Nashashibi Street to the south and Klarmon Gnu Street to the north. The area was designated for public buildings and hospitals in the Jerusalem master plan prepared by the British urban planner Henry Kendall, in 1944. On the other side of Nashashibi Street St. John's Hospital is also located, and on the other side of Clermont Gnu Street, the Jordanian government built a governmental hospital in the 1960s. After the Six Day War, the Israeli government decided to expropriate the Jordanian hospital compound and established a government office compound there. The Jordanian government hospital was transferred to the Israel Police and became part of the national headquarters compound. An empty lot adjacent to the St. Joseph's Hospital, at the corner of Clermont Gnu street and Nablus Roads, originally designated for the expansion of the St. Joseph Hospital building, was handed over in 1997 to "Amana" the Israeli settlement organization. Following a lengthy legal battle, which failed, against the expropriation of the plot of land, "Amana " inaugurated an office building on the plot, that serves as its headquarters. [3]

Part of the hospital's budget was funded by an annual donation from the United States government, but in September 2018, President Donald Trump decided to cut more than $20 million from the American support given to Palestinian hospitals in East Jerusalem, including St. Joseph. [4]

During the COVID-19 pandemic St. Joseph's Hospital was the first in East Jerusalem to open the Corona Department. [5] As a gesture of goodwill, on the eve of Independence Day on April 28, 2020, Mayor Moshe Lion asked the Israeli Air Force to change the course of its flyover over pass hospitals, in salute to medical teams, to also include St. Joseph's Hospital. [6]

On May 13, 2022, the funeral procession of Shireen Abu Akleh, a journalist who worked for the Al-Jazeera and was killed by gunfire in Jenin, started at the hospital. [7] [8] [9] As her casket was being transported from the hospital, hundreds of people gathered outside the hospital. Reportedly, some people started "chanting nationalist incitement" and throwing objects at the Israeli police. Israeli police burst through the gates of the hospital and attacked mourners with batons and stun grenades, some repeatedly hitting and kicking pall bearers that were backed against a wall resulting in her coffin nearly falling to the ground. [10] [11] The coffin was later loaded on to a hearse and transported to the Cathedral of the Annunciation of the Virgin for the funeral, and from there carried on foot to the Mount Zion Cemetery where she was buried next to her parents. [12] [13] [14] The European Union released a statement saying it was "appalled by the violence in the St Joseph hospital compound and the level of unnecessary force exercised by Israeli police throughout the funeral procession." [15]

Related Research Articles

<i>Al-Quds</i> (newspaper) Palestinian newspaper

Al-Quds is a Palestinian Arabic-language daily newspaper, based in Jerusalem. It is published in broadsheet format. It is the largest circulation daily newspaper in the Palestinian territories. It was founded in 1967 as a result of a merger of two publications: Al-Difa and Al-Jihad. The owner of the former Al-Jihad newspaper, Mahmoud Abu-Zalaf, served as its first editor-in-chief until his death in 2005. It is currently edited by his son, Walid Abu-Zalaf.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sheikh Jarrah</span> Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem

Sheikh Jarrah is a predominantly Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem, two kilometres north of the Old City, on the road to Mount Scopus. It received its name from the 13th-century tomb of Hussam al-Din al-Jarrahi, a physician of Saladin, located within its vicinity. The modern neighborhood was founded in 1865 and gradually became a residential center of Jerusalem's Muslim elite, particularly the al-Husayni family. After the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, it became under Jordanian-held East Jerusalem, bordering the no-man's land area with Israeli-held West Jerusalem until Israel occupied the neighborhood in the 1967 Six-Day War. Most of its present Palestinian population is said to come from refugees expelled from Jerusalem's Talbiya neighbourhood in 1948.

The 2013 Tapuah Junction stabbing occurred on 30 April, in which an armed Israeli settler, Evyatar Borovsky, was stabbed, disarmed and then, according to some witnesses, shot with his own weapon at a bus stop in the northern West Bank by a Palestinian resident of Tulkarem. The Israeli police described the attacker as a "Palestinian terrorist". The perpetrator was identified as Salam As'ad Zaghal, who had recently been released from 3.5 years in jail for planting explosives. The stabbing was praised by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party, its military wing, and its Islamist offshoot the Palestinian Mujahideen movement, and by Zaghal's family. Jewish settlers in the West Bank waged a series of violent reprisal attacks against Palestinian targets in the West Bank, and an Israeli outpost was later named in the victim's honor.

The 2014 Jerusalem unrest, sometimes referred as the Silent Intifada is a term occasionally used to refer to an increase in violence focused on Jerusalem in 2014, especially from July of that year. Although the name "silent intifada," appears to have been coined in the summer of 2014, suggestions that there should be or already is an incipient intifada had circulated among activists, columnists, journalists and on social media since 2011. Commentators speculated about the varying utility to the Palestinian and Israeli left, right, and center of not only of naming, but of asserting or denying that there is or is about to be a new intifada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yehudah Glick</span> Israeli political activist and politician

Yehudah Joshua Glick, alternatively spelled "Yehuda Glick", is an American-born Israeli Orthodox rabbi and politician, described as a "right-wing" or "far-right" activist. As the President of Shalom Jerusalem Foundation, he campaigns for expanding Jewish access to the Temple Mount. He was a member of the Knesset for Likud, having taken the place of former Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon in May 2016 until April 2019.

This is a list of individual incidents and statistical breakdowns of incidents of violence between Israel and Palestinian dissident factions in 2014 as part of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

The kidnapping and murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir occurred early on the morning of 2 July 2014. Khdeir, a 16-year-old Palestinian, was forced into a car by Israeli citizens on an East Jerusalem street. His family immediately reported the fact to Israeli Police who located his charred body a few hours later at Givat Shaul in the Jerusalem Forest. Preliminary results from the autopsy suggested that he was beaten and burnt while still alive. The perpetrators subsequently claimed that the attack was a response to the abduction and murder of three Israeli teens on 12 June. The murders contributed to a breakout of hostilities in the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lions' Gate stabbings</span> 2015 incident in Jerusalem, Israel

On 3 October 2015, a Palestinian resident of al-Bireh attacked the Benita family near the Lions' Gate in Jerusalem, as they were on their way to the Western Wall to pray. The attacker murdered Aaron Benita, the father of the family, and injured the mother Adele and their 2-year-old son Matan. Nehemia Lavi, a resident who heard screams and came to help was also murdered and his gun taken by the assailant. The attacker, 19 year old Muhanad Shafeq Halabi was shot and killed by police as he was firing on pedestrians.

On 9 October 2016 in Jerusalem, Musbah Abu Sbaih, a Hamas militant shot 8 people from a car near the Ammunition Hill light rail stop, killing two and wounding six. The police gave chase, Shaih was shot and killed while shooting at pursuing police.

On 14 July 2017, three Arab-Israeli men left the Temple Mount, and opened fire on Israeli border police officers stationed near the Gate of the Tribes which is close to the Lions' Gate. Two Israeli border police officers were killed and two more were injured in the attack. All three attackers were shot and killed by Israeli police after fleeing back into the complex.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2017 Temple Mount crisis</span>

The 2017 Temple Mount crisis was a period of violent tensions related to the Temple Mount, which began on 14 July 2017, after a shooting incident in the complex in which Palestinian gunmen killed two Israeli police officers. Following the attack, Israeli authorities installed metal detectors at the entrance to the Mount in a step that caused large Palestinian protests and was severely criticized by Palestinian leaders, the Arab League, and other Muslim leaders, on the basis that it constituted a change in the "status quo" of the Temple Mount entry restrictions.

On 13 October 2015, two Palestinians, armed with a firearm and a knife boarded a bus in the Israeli settlement of East Talpiot in East Jerusalem, and started attacking and stabbing the passengers. One of the assailants tried to take control on the bus and locked the bus door to prevent the passengers from escaping. Police arrived, killed one of the assailants and neutralized the other. Three civilians were killed and 15 wounded. One of the wounded succumbed to his wounds on 27 October 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dance of Flags</span> Annual parade in Jerusalem

Dance of Flags, or ‘’’Flag March’’’, is an annual flag flying parade on Jerusalem Day to celebrate what some Israelis term the "reunification of Jerusalem", but more widely-recognised as the military occupation and annexation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank in the 1967 Arab–Israeli War. While Israelis consider the day an important display of Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem, Palestinians consider it "an offensive and unnecessary expression of dominance in an area that they, and most foreign governments, consider occupied Palestinian territory."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2021 Jerusalem shooting</span> Shooting in Jerusalem

On 21 November 2021, a shooting took place in the Old City of Jerusalem. Fadi Abu Shkhaydem, a 42-year-old Palestinian from East Jerusalem killed a 26 year old Israeli, who had made aliyah from South Africa in 2019. He injured four others before being shot dead by police.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shireen Abu Akleh</span> Palestinian-American journalist (1971–2022)

Shireen Abu Akleh was a Palestinian-American journalist. A prominent figure in Palestinian society, she had been a reporter for Al Jazeera for 25 years. In 2022, while she was covering a raid by the Israel Defense Forces on the Jenin refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Abu Akleh was shot dead while she was wearing a blue vest with "PRESS" written on it in blue-on-white letters; Al Jazeera and nearby witnesses stated that she had been shot in the head by an Israeli soldier. Owing to her decades-long reporting from the Palestinian territories, she was one of the most well-known media personalities in the Arab world, and was particularly seen as a role model for many Arab women and especially for Palestinian women.

Basel Adra is a Palestinian activist and journalist who in 2021 was falsely accused of framing the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) and who in 2022 was beaten while filming the IDF demolishing a structure that he built.

Events in the year 2022 in the Palestinian territories.

Lina Abu Akleh is a Palestinian human rights advocate. As the niece of Shireen Abu Akleh, a journalist shot dead by Israeli forces in 2022, Lina Abu Akleh has campaigned for justice for her aunt, and for issues affecting Palestinians more generally. This has included petitioning the United States Government to open its own investigation into the death of her aunt, as well as meeting Secretary of State Antony Blinken. In October 2022 she met with Pope Francis at a memorial Mass for her aunt.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh</span> 2022 killing of a Palestinian journalist

At approximately 7:08 a.m. (EEST) on 11 May 2022, the Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was shot dead while she was covering a raid by the Israel Defense Forces at the Jenin refugee camp. Nearby witnesses and the Qatari media network Al Jazeera, with which Abu Akleh had been employed for 25 years, alleged that she had been killed after being shot in the head by an Israeli soldier. Following the shooting, she was transported to the local Ibn Sina Specialized Hospital, where she was pronounced dead by medical personnel. The incident triggered widespread uproar among Palestinians and also brought about a significant amount of international attention; Abu Akleh's status as an American citizen prompted direct involvement by the United States into the post-killing investigation. Israel initially claimed that she had been killed by "indiscriminate" gunfire from Palestinian militants fighting Israeli troops, but later stated that there was a "high possibility" that Israeli gunfire "accidentally" hit Abu Akleh while she was at the camp. At the time of her death, Abu Akleh had been wearing a blue vest with "PRESS" written on it in blue-on-white letters, as is typical for civilian journalists reporting in combat zones.

References

  1. ↑ Hasson, Nir (4 August 2014). "Gazan Patients Hospitalized in East Jerusalem, Looking for Hope and Answers". Haaretz . Retrieved 15 May 2022.
  2. ↑ "Lorand Gaspar: The Autobiographical Introductory Essay". The Brooklyn Rail . Retrieved 15 May 2022.
  3. ↑ Hasson, Nir (3 December 2019). "These Settlers Got Expropriated Palestinian Plot From the State. Now They Rent It to Jerusalem's Municipality at a Profit". Haaretz . Retrieved 15 May 2022.
  4. ↑ Efrati, Ido (13 November 2018). "Senior Israeli Doctors Protest Trump's Aid Cut to East Jerusalem Hospitals". Haaretz . Retrieved 15 May 2022.
  5. ↑ Kubovich, Yaniv (21 April 2020). "Senior Israeli Army Commander Appointed to Handle Coronavirus Crisis in East Jerusalem". Haaretz . Retrieved 15 May 2022.
  6. ↑ Hasson, Nir (4 May 2020). "Dawn of a New Era? Jerusalem and Its Palestinian Residents Joining Forces to Battle Coronavirus". Haaretz . Retrieved 15 May 2022.
  7. ↑ Hendrix, Steve; Taha, Sufian (May 13, 2022). "Massive crowds, police beatings as journalist's funeral is held in Jerusalem". The Washington Post. ISSN   0190-8286 . Retrieved May 13, 2022.
  8. ↑ Magid, Jacob; Boxerman, Aaron; Agencies. "US 'deeply disturbed' over images of Israeli police beating mourners; EU 'appalled'". The Times of Israel . Retrieved May 13, 2022.
  9. ↑ "Massive crowds, police beatings as journalist's funeral is held in Jerusalem". Washington Post. ISSN   0190-8286 . Retrieved May 13, 2022. The funeral of slain Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh began in chaos Friday, as Israeli police set off stun grenades and beat mourners with batons, after a group of them tried to carry her coffin on their shoulders rather than let it be loaded in a hearse.
  10. ↑ "Israeli police beat mourners at funeral of slain Palestinian journalist". Reuters. May 14, 2022. Retrieved May 14, 2022.
  11. ↑ Shubert, Atika; Salman, Abeer (May 13, 2022). "Israeli police beat mourners with batons at funeral procession for veteran journalist". CNN. Retrieved May 13, 2022.
  12. ↑ Hendrix, Steve (May 13, 2022). "Slain Palestinian American journalist's funeral is held, under heavy Israeli guard". The Washington Post. Retrieved May 13, 2022.
  13. ↑ Tahhan, Zena Al (May 13, 2022). "Shireen Abu Akleh: Palestinians bid farewell to slain journalist - Israel-Palestine conflict News". Al Jazeera. Retrieved May 13, 2022.
  14. ↑ Kingsley, Patrick; Abdulrahim, Raja (May 13, 2022). "Israeli Police Attack Mourners Before Funeral for Shireen Abu Akleh". The New York Times. Retrieved May 14, 2022.
  15. ↑ Taha, Sufian (May 13, 2022). "Israeli police attack funeral procession for shot journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh". The Guardian. Retrieved May 13, 2022.

31°47′46″N35°13′54″E / 31.79611°N 35.23167°E / 31.79611; 35.23167 Commons-logo.svg Media related to Saint Joseph Hospital in Jerusalem at Wikimedia Commons

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.