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Singaporean activist Gilbert Goh has pulled out of a possible partnership with a Palestinian hospital that may have ties to terrorism, he said <\/strong>in a statement by his charity on Wednesday (Sept 23).<\/p>\n The 65-year-old’s charity, Love Aid Singapore (LAS), has been active in food distribution and education in West Bank, Palestine.<\/p>\n This comes after three Singapore ministries shared in a joint statement that LAS does not require the Singapore Government’s approval<\/a> for its humanitarian operations in Palestine.<\/p>\n Goh had said earlier that he intended to sign a memorandum of understanding with Al-Awda Hospital in Gaza Strip <\/strong>\u2014 but the hospital is not affiliated with the Palestinian <\/strong>Authority, according to Singapore’s Office of the Commissioner of Charities (COC).<\/p>\n Love Aid Singapore therefore has to do its own due diligence before deciding on the collaboration, the COC had said.<\/p>\n AsiaOne understands that Al-Awda Hospital \u2014 previously known as the Union of Health Work Committees \u2014 is allegedly affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which has been designated a terrorist organisation by many countries.<\/p>\n Responding to queries from AsiaOne, LAS explained that it understands that Al-Awda participates in the Gaza Health Cluster and in humanitarian coordination meetings with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and other humanitarian partners.\u00a0<\/p>\n “However, LAS is not in a position to independently verify or comment conclusively on allegations concerning political affiliations,” the organisation said.<\/p>\n “Given the concerns that have now been raised, our Gaza team will not proceed with the proposed partnership with Al-Awda.<\/p>\n “We want to avoid any ambiguity regarding the independence, neutrality, and humanitarian purpose of LAS operations.”<\/p>\n LAS will instead explore “an alternative arrangement” that will allow its organisation’s polyclinic to reopen under an “appropriate, transparent, and compliant structure”, the statement added.<\/p>\n The charity also stressed that it operates in Gaza in accordance with humanitarian operating principles, maintaining transparency, neutrality, impartiality and independence from all parties to the conflict.<\/p>\n Since the establishment of their Singapore Love Polyclinic nearly a year ago, its facilities have been run by a team selected directly by LAS and operates independently.\u00a0<\/p>\n Explaining how the proposed memorandum first came up, LAS stated that it had declined to directly partner with the Palestinian Ministry of Health <\/strong>during the clinic’s operations.<\/p>\n “We were subsequently advised that the clinic should work through a locally registered Palestinian health organisation, and Al-Awda was proposed to us as one of the established healthcare organisations with significant operational capacity in Gaza,” LAS said.<\/p>\n The charity added that its preference remains that it has direct leadership and oversight of the clinic despite operational challenges in Gaza.<\/p>\n “This is an important medical facility with substantial capacity to serve the local population, and it carries Singapore’s name.\u00a0<\/p>\n “We therefore have a responsibility to ensure that its humanitarian work remains clearly independent, accountable, and focused solely on serving civilians.”<\/p>\n [[nid:745601]]<\/p>\n khooyihang@asiaone.com<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Singaporean activist Gilbert Goh has pulled out of a possible partnership with a Palestinian hospital that may have ties to terrorism, he said in a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":87456,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/87456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}LAS’ Singapore Love Polyclinic<\/h2>\n
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