About MAP

Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) works in partnership with Palestinian communities to uphold their rights to health and dignity. We do this by developing effective, sustainable and locally-led healthcare services, providing medical aid during emergencies, and campaigning to break down the barriers to Palestinian health and healthcare today and for the future.  

Our vision

A future in which all Palestinians can access an effective, sustainable and locally-led system of healthcare and the full realisation of their rights to health and dignity.

Our mission

To work for the health and dignity of Palestinians living under occupation and as refugees.

Our goal

The full realisation of the health and wellbeing potential of Palestinians, supported by a sustainable, high-quality, readily accessible and locally-led healthcare system.

Our organisational objectives

• Measurable improvements in health and wellbeing.
• Enhanced professional, technical and/or organisational capacity of our local programme partners.
• An end to the political, economic and social barriers to Palestinians’ rights to health and dignity, and the sustainable development of an effective, locally-led system of healthcare for all Palestinians.

Our history

Between 16 and 18 September 1982, Lebanese Phalangist militants entered the Beirut refugee camp of Sabra and Shatila, and killed and injured hundreds of unarmed Palestinian and other civilians inside. The camp’s residents were defenceless.

The Israeli army, who had invaded Lebanon earlier that year and had surrounded the camp, had full knowledge of what was taking place inside, yet they never intervened. Instead, they illuminated the camp throughout the night by flares launched into the sky from helicopters and mortars.

Working in a hospital inside the camp at the time was a young orthopaedic surgeon from London, Dr Swee Chai Ang. Refusing to leave the hospital, Dr Ang worked tirelessly to save the injured and protect her patients during the massacre.

On her return to London, Dr Ang joined with fellow medical professionals and humanitarians to establish Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), in order to send doctors and nurses to work in the Palestinian refugee camps and provide frontline care.