About Map
Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) works for a future where every Palestinian has access to a comprehensive, effective and locally-led system of healthcare, and the full realisation of their rights to health and dignity.
To achieve this, we work in collaboration with Palestinian communities and trusted local partners to answer a wide range of health and social needs, from providing vital medical aid in emergencies, to supporting the development of better health services for the long term. We also uplift the voices of Palestinians, and campaign for an end to the barriers to health and dignity that come from living through occupation, displacement, discrimination and conflict.
Our vision
A future in which all Palestinians can access an effective, sustainable and locally-led system of healthcare and the full realization 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 values
Solidarity
We put solidarity into action by working collaboratively as one MAP team, and working side-by-side with local partners and with volunteers, in genuine partnership, to address injustice.
Dignity
We are inclusive, and we support diverse leaders within the Palestinian community, ensuring that both women and men – and those who may normally be underrepresented – can participate meaningfully in decision-making.
Impact
We deliver significant, sustainable impact for Palestinians in need.
Integrity
In order to partner effectively with Palestinian communities and to maintain the trust of our local partners, volunteers, employees, supporters, donors, suppliers and other stakeholders, we always operate with integrity.
Our strategy
We developed our current organisational strategy in 2022, to cover the five-year period of 2023-2027. Since this strategy was agreed, the Palestinian people have been plunged into an era-defining, generational crisis and a time of unprecedented and existential uncertainty.
Our Strategic Focus 2025-2028 therefore articulates our strategy in this new and challenging context, at a pivotal moment for the Palestinian people living under Israel military’s occupation and as refugees in Lebanon and, by extension, for our organisation. Read our strategy here.
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.
MAP today
Since then, MAP has been working with Palestinian communities, to deliver locally-led health and medical care to those worst affected by conflict, occupation and displacement.
Today we have offices in the West Bank, Gaza, Jerusalem, Lebanon and London. With our extensive local knowledge and experience, we work closely with communities, hospitals, clinics and healthcare providers to coordinate care and medical aid even where there are severe restrictions on access.
MAP provides immediate medical aid to those in need at times of crisis, while also developing local capacity and skills to ensure the long-term development of the Palestinian healthcare system.
We are also committed to speaking out against injustices that prevent Palestinians from fully enjoying their rights to health and dignity, and campaign to ensure the voices of Palestinians impacted by occupation, displacement and conflict are heard at the highest levels.