Pope Francis’s Popemobile to be Refitted as Mobile Health Clinic for Gaza Children

The popemobile will be refitted into a mobile health clinic for children in Gaza

Pope Francis waving for the people aboard his popemobile after the mass in Bethlehem, May 2014. (Photo: Mustafa Bader via Wikimedia Commons, CC 4.0)

In 2014, Pope Francis paid a visit to Bethlehem, meandering through the Holy Land’s streets with a white popemobile. The converted Mitsubishi was manufactured specially for this journey, and hasn’t been used since—until now. Mere months before his death on April 21, 2025, Pope Francis requested that the Catholic charity organization Caritas repurpose the vehicle as a mobile health clinic for children in Gaza.

As one of Pope Francis’ final wishes, the converted popemobile will deliver medical care directly to those without access to essential services, much of which have been devastated by Israeli forces. The vehicle will be outfitted with supplies critical for frontline care, including rapid tests, suture kits, syringes, oxygen, vaccines, and a small fridge for storing medication. Alongside a dedicated driver, the clinic will be overseen by a team of doctors.

“This is a concrete, life-saving intervention at a time when the health system in Gaza has almost completely collapsed,” Peter Brune, the secretary general of Caritas Sweden, said in a statement.

For the past 18 months, Gaza has been the site of one of the world’s most dire humanitarian crises. UNICEF announced last month that the ongoing genocide has already killed more than 15,000 children, injured over 34,000, and repeatedly displaced or deprived nearly 1 million children of their right to basic services. Israel has also blocked all aid into the Gaza Strip as of March 2, 2025, dramatically undermining Palestinian access to food, safe water, shelter, and medical care.

“It’s forbidden to use civilians and, even worse, children as some kind of instrument in an ongoing war between adults,” Brune told The Guardian. “It’s against all humanitarian principles and laws.”

During his pontificate, and especially amid the war, Pope Francis made clear his unwavering solidarity with Gaza. For much of the past year and a half, the Pope would call Gaza’s only Catholic church on a daily basis, and consistently stress that the children were killed through Israel’s military attacks.

“Yesterday, children were bombed,” the Pope said in a December 2024 address, after an Israeli airstrike killed seven children from one family. “This is cruelty. This is not war.”

During his Easter address, delivered just a day before his death, Pope Francis again called for a ceasefire in the region. The popemobile’s new life addresses the urgent need for supplies and healthcare in Gaza, and reflects Pope Francis’ own support of the Palestinian people throughout his life.

“It was close to his heart,” Brune added. “Everywhere where humanitarian access is denied, we want to apply the principle of saying that the popemobile will stand for the importance of letting humanitarian aid come through.”