24 February 2017
The Medical Aid for Palestinians team would like to send a huge thank you to everyone who attended our "Give it Up for Palestine” comedy evening at Leicester Square Theatre on Monday in support of our projects in Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza.
The evening was a huge success, and marked the launch of a year of action and campaigning as Palestinians approach the 50 year anniversary of the occupation, and 10 years of blockade and closure in Gaza.
Jeremy Hardy was our Master of Ceremonies for the night, and hosted an all-star line-up of comedians in London’s West End, including Bill
Bailey, Alexei Sayle, Sara Pascoe, Imran Yusuf and Shazia Mirza. If you missed the event, look out for our highlights film next week!
Proceeds from the night went to MAP's projects providing health and medical care for Palestinians living under occupation and as refugees. If you’d like to find out other ways to get involved with MAP, click here.
The event also featured a special preview of our upcoming documentary following comedians Jeremy Hardy and Imran Yusuf on their trip to the West Bank with MAP last month to visit our projects and witness what half a century of occupation means for the Palestinians who have endured it. The documentary will be available on the MAP website later this year.
Talking to the New Arab before the show, Jeremy reflected on their trip:
“First of all we went to Hebron which was formerly the largest city in Palestine and a very vibrant economic centre. Now it is completely devastated because of the settlements.
It was the first place that settlements were built - after the 1967 war. Now the life of the Palestinians has basically been shut down more or less completely by settlers. The situation is like a microcosm of the West Bank.
We also went to the Jordan valley and met Bedouin there who are helped by a MAP-funded visiting clinic - which is basically a white van with a clinic in it - and went to Silwad where we met a lady whose land had been confiscated by settlers.
The point of this trip was not just to look at what MAP is doing but how the occupation impacts on people.
For example we met with paramedics who explained that in order to go from Ramallah to the main Palestinian hospital in Jerusalem, the Makkased, Palestinians have to go through a checkpoint. If they are in an ambulance they have to be transferred from one ambulance in a holding area on the Ramallah side into another that has come from the Jerusalem side. 
People die because they don't reach the hospital in time. People also miss appointments all the time because of getting held up at the checkpoints, for example for not having the right paperwork…
It just highlights the brutality of the occupation in the way it just makes ordinary everyday life, things that we take for granted, impossible.
The wall is just this feature that you can't avoid seeing. It is just this hideous thing that just divides people from their businesses, their land, from their families.
You can read more of Jeremy Hardy’s interview with the New Arab here.
On the evening the six outstanding comedians each showed their support to MAP's work and helped raise awareness of our 2017 #HealthandDignity campaign for Palestinians living as refugees or under occupation. As Jeremy Hardy reflected before going on stage, “hopefully this is an entertaining evening for people where they can learn a bit about it and get fired up as well.”
Please join our call and demand #HealthAndDignity for Palestinians:
