Indonesia will convert a medical facility on its currently uninhabited island of Galang to treat about 2,000 wounded residents of Gaza, who will return home after recovery, a presidential spokesperson said on Thursday.

Following Israel’s offensive that began in October 2023, which Gaza health officials claim has resulted in over 60,000 Palestinian deaths, Indonesia has been sending humanitarian aid to the region.

“Indonesia will provide medical assistance for about 2,000 Gaza residents who have been victims of the conflict, including those who are wounded or trapped under debris,” said spokesperson Hasan Nasbi, emphasizing that this initiative is not an evacuation.

“Indonesia will give medical help for about 2,000 Gaza residents who became victims of war, those who are wounded, buried under debris,” the spokesperson, Hasan Nasbi, told reporters, adding that the exercise was not an evacuation.

Indonesia plans to allocate the facility on Galang island, off its island of Sumatra and south of Singapore, to treat wounded Gaza residents and temporarily shelter their families, he said, adding that nobody lived around it now. The patients would be taken back to Gaza after they had healed, he said.

Hasan did not provide a specific timeline or additional details. The questions refers to Indonesia’s foreign and defense ministries, which did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

The initiative follows President Prabowo Subianto’s offer to shelter wounded Palestinians drew criticism from Indonesia’s top clerics for seeming too close to US President Donald Trump’s suggestion of permanently moving Palestinians out of Gaza.

In response to Trump’s proposal, the foreign ministry of Indonesia, which backs a two-state solution to resolve the Middle East crisis, said at the time it “strongly rejects any attempt to forcibly displace Palestinians”.

A hospital to treat victims of the COVID-19 pandemic opened in 2020 on Galang, which had been until 1996 a sprawling refugee camp run by the United Nations, housing 250,000 of those who fled the Vietnam War.