The ship has a crew of over 170 sailors, of which approximately 30 are employed in the health facility, including 2 volunteer Red Cross nurses
Italy is sending a hospital ship that will be stationed off the coast of Gaza to aid the Palestinian population, Defense Minister Guido Crosetto announces.
Crosetto says the mission is a concrete sign of Italy’s “closeness to the Palestinian people, distance from the Hamas terrorists.”
The ship Vulcano has 170 people on board, including medical and military personnel, and includes operating rooms. It will first head to Cyprus and then as close as possible to the conflict zone to provide emergency medical support, Crosetto says.
The minister defined the Vulcan ship and the field hospital as “structures and means which, as soon as they arrive in the area, will also be made available to the medical and healthcare personnel of all countries – whether Western or Arab – who wish to collaborate with us in this action humanitarian which for us is a precise moral duty even before a political one”. Crosetto added: “It is also necessary, it is our precise task, today more than ever, to establish diplomatic, as well as humanitarian, relationships and talks and transversal collaboration with all the actors present in the Middle Eastern region, in particular with the countries Arabs, and identify, at all costs, a de-escalation of tensions and conflict. At this moment the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are working to extend participation in this humanitarian operation to other countries so that there can be maximum sharing of this unprecedented operation”.
