Franklin Graham dedicates ambulances near Gaza

Franklin Graham, CEO and president of Samaritan’s Purse, will dedicate two bulletproof ambulances and a Magen David Adom (MDA) station on the Gaza border today.

This year, Samaritan’s Purse has gifted a total of 22 ambulances, eight of them armored, to Magen David Adom, Israel’s emergency services system, as well as two stations — one in Shlomi in northern Israel and one in Avshalom in the south near Gaza and the Egyptian border.

The two ambulances will be dedicated to two families who lost loved ones during the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks.

In the months after October 7, Graham met with the families of MDA medics who were killed in the terror attacks and pledged his continuing support to replenish the fleet of rescue vehicles destroyed by terrorists, as well as adding more resources to serve Israelis facing escalating violence on several borders.

In January, just three months after 14 of Magen David Adom’s ambulances were destroyed in the October 7 terrorist attacks on southern Israel, replacement vehicles donated by Samaritan’s Purse were dedicated in a moving ceremony in Jerusalem.

The January ceremony also served to commemorate four medics who were killed while treating patients or on their way to the scene in an ambulance.

In addition to ambulances and medic stations, Samaritan’s Purse has also sent hundreds of lifesaving trauma supply kits to Israel, some of which were used during the devastating missile attack on the Druze village of Majdal Shams on July 27, which killed 12 children who were playing soccer.

“I saw the destruction in Israel after the brutal Hamas attack on October 7,” Graham said. “I stood in the place where brave men and women gave their lives, men and women who rushed to save as many lives as they could. When I heard that Magen David Adom lost ambulances, many that were destroyed that day, I just knew we had to do something.

“God loves Israel; He cares for them, and so do we.”

–Clem Boyd