NAIROBI, Kenya, May 5 –The Vatican is finalazing arrangmenets to send Pope Francis’ popemobile to Gaza, repurposed as a mobile health clinic for children—fulfilling one of the Pope’s final wishes before his death.
The iconic vehicle, once used by Pope Francis to reach and bless crowds around the world, and which carried his body to the final resting place at the Papal Basilica of St Mary Major in Rome outside the Vatican, will to serve vulnerable populations in Gaza.
The initiative, entrusted to Caritas Jerusalem, seeks to bring lifesaving healthcare to children suffering amid the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in the war-torn region.
“It was his final wish for the people he never stopped praying for,” Vatican News reported on Sunday.
In his final months, the Pope asked officials to use the vehicle to serve Gaza’s children—nearly one million of whom now endure displacement, starvation, infections, and preventable illnesses due to the collapsed healthcare system.
“Children are not numbers. They are faces. Names. Stories. And each one is sacred,” Pope Francis once said—words that now take on renewed meaning through this final act of solidarity.
Reaching children
The transformed popemobile will include essential medical supplies—including diagnostic equipment, vaccines, suture kits, and infection testing tools.
“This is a concrete, life-saving intervention at a time when the health system in Gaza has almost completely collapsed,” said Peter Brune, Secretary General of Caritas Sweden, in a press release.
“With the vehicle, we will be able to reach children who today have no access to health care—children who are injured and malnourished.”
Caritas Jerusalem, long active in Gaza, is leading the on-the-ground effort with more than one hundred staff members dedicated to delivering healthcare under extreme conditions.
Anton Asfar, Secretary General of Caritas Jerusalem, emphasized the symbolic power of the gesture as an enduring mark of Pope Francis’ kindness to humanity.
“This vehicle represents the love, care, and closeness shown by His Holiness for the most vulnerable, which he expressed throughout the crisis.”
Photographs from the conversion process show workers meticulously reengineering the vehicle to meet the needs of children under siege. But for those leading the effort, the popemobile represents far more than just a tool—it sends a message of hope.
“It’s not just a vehicle,” Brune added. “It’s a message that the world has not forgotten about the children in Gaza.” And it is, he said, “an invitation for the rest of the world to remember, too.”
