Our History

Medical Aid for Palestinians was launched in 1984 in the aftermath of the Sabra and Shatila massacres with a mission to provide emergency relief and medical assistance to Palestinians in desperate need of help as a result of the Israeli invasion and the civil war in Lebanon.

Read the MAP 25 Anniversary Document

Until the outbreak of the first Palestinian Intifada in December 1987, MAP concentrated its efforts on sending medical volunteers and supplies to the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. In that period over 300 volunteers from 12 countries gave their services.

With the eruption of the first Intifada, the organisation increased its material and personnel support to health institutions in the West Bank and Gaza. With support from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) MAP established its first project in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).

By the early 1990s, MAP was supporting a diverse range of projects in Lebanon and throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

By 1993 MAP was contributing to the purchase of equipment and supplies for a new maternity hospital in Tulkarm and two of its occupational therapists were working with the Patients Friends Society mobile clinic reaching 14 isolated villages around Jenin.

Today MAP has offices in Ramallah, Gaza City, Beirut and London.

Buy MAP Founder Dr Swee Chai Ang's book

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The Birth of MAP

The Sabra and Shatila massacres

 
On 6 June 1982, Israeli forces invaded Lebanon and by mid-June they had surrounded the Palestinian Liberation Organization's forces in west Beirut. A UN-mediated ceasefire led to the evacuation of the PLO from Beirut on 1 September.
 
Ten days later, Israel's defence minister, Ariel Sharon, announced that 2,000 terrorists remained inside the Palestinian refugee camps around Beirut. A day after the assassination of the Israeli-allied Phalangist militia leader and Lebanese president-elect Bashir Gemayel on 14 September, Israeli forces occupied West Beirut, encircling the camps of Sabra and Shatila.
 
At around midday the next day, 16 September, approximately 150 Lebanese militiamen entered the camps. A three-day orgy of rape and killing left hundreds, possibly thousands of civilians dead.