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The popemobile used by the late pope Francis on his 2014 visit to Bethlehem re-emerged on Tuesday as a mobile children’s clinic to be deployed in Gaza.The vehicle is still unmistakeable as a popemobile: pristine white inside and out, and with the familiar raised canopy.But instead of transporting the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Roman Catholics, the re-branded “Vehicle of Hope” is now set to serve in the war-battered Gaza Strip, in accordance with the late pope’s wishes.It was unveiled in Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, around the corner from the Church of the Nativity and Manger Square, where preparations are well underway for Christmas.”The Vehicle of Hope is ready for its new mission,” Cardinal Anders Arborelius, the Bishop of Stockholm, told a press conference, after blessing the vehicle.”We want every child we reach to feel seen, heard and protected. The rights and well-being of the child come first.”This vehicle stands as a testament: the world has not forgotten the children of Gaza.”This is not just a vehicle: it’s a message of compassion, dignity and hope.”Staffed by medics, the popemobile is intended for performing triage and is equipped for examination, diagnosis and treatment, including vaccines, stitches and tests for infections.The clinic should be able to perform up to 200 consultations a day. The children will sit in the pontiff’s chair while being attended to.- Pope’s ‘final wish’ -In May 2014, Francis visited Amman, Bethlehem and Jerusalem, on his second international visit as pontiff. The popemobile was used as he toured Bethlehem, greeting the crowds gathered in Manger Square.A gift from the Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, the converted Mitsubishi was later given to Franciscan friars.Pope Francis died on April 21 aged 88, and his final wish for Gaza’s children was that the popemobile should become a mobile health unit, the official Vatican News portal said in May.The vehicle was transformed by Caritas, the Catholic humanitarian aid organisation. Costing $15,000, it has been repurposed and spruced up by Palestinian mechanics. The open sides have been screened off.”The children of Gaza were very close to the heart of pope Francis,” said Peter Brune, secretary general of the Caritas Sweden branch.”They will sit on the seat of the pope, and be treated like the most valuable person on Earth.”However, there is no date yet as to when it might receive Israeli authorisation to enter Gaza, where a fragile truce between Israel and Hamas came into effect on October 10 after two years of war that devastated healthcare in the Palestinian territory.”As with all humanitarian assistance, we urgently need access to Gaza,” Caritas secretary general Alistair Dutton told AFP.”We’re working through the official channels to get this in as quickly as possible.”

Thousands of people demonstrated on Tuesday across Syria’s coastal Alawite heartland in protest at recent attacks targeting the minority community, AFP correspondents said.The protests are the biggest in the Alawite region since the fall last December of longtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad, who hails from the community, following an Islamist-led offensive.Since then, the community has been the target of attacks, while hundreds of people were killed in sectarian massacres in the area in March.Protesters in the port city of Latakia shouted slogans including “The Syrian people are one” and “To the whole world, listen to us, the Alawites will not bend”.Security forces were deployed in the city but did not intervene.”We are one united people. We want armed factions in the region to leave, justice for our martyrs on the coast, and the release of our prisoners… We don’t know what they are accused of,” said Joumana, 58, a lawyer, who declined to provide her family name.Demonstrations also took place in other coastal areas such as Tartus and Jableh, where hundreds of people held banners demanding “federalism” and “the liberation of prisoners”, an AFP correspondent said.The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said that 9,000 mostly Alawite former military personnel who had surrendered to the new authorities were still being held.Clashes broke out in Jableh between participants in the rally and a counter-demonstration by supporters of the authorities, and gunshots were heard, the correspondent said. A few people sustained minor injuries.Later on Tuesday, the Observatory said people vandalised Alawite properties and hurled insults at members of the community in Latakia.- ‘We demand federalism’ -The protests took place after a call on social media by the Supreme Islamic Alawite Council in Syria and Abroad.That appeal followed a wave of violence against the community in the central city of Homs after a Sunni Muslim Bedouin couple were killed on Sunday, with sectarian graffiti found at the site.After accusations emerged that Alawites were behind the killings, shops and houses were vandalised in districts home to the community, before authorities imposed a curfew and later said the killings were “a criminal act and not sectarian in nature”.Protester Mona, 25, said that “what happened in Homs is unacceptable”.”We demand freedom and security, an end to the killings and to kidnappings,” she said, also declining to provide her surname.”We want federalism for the Syrian coast,” she added.The Observatory for Human Rights recorded 42 demonstrations on Tuesday.The sectarian violence that tore through Syria’s Alawite heartland in March killed at least 1,426 members of the minority community, according to authorities, who said it began with attacks on government forces by Assad supporters.The Observatory said more than 1,700 people were killed.A UN commission found in August that the violence was “widespread and systematic”, with some cases amounting to war crimes.Syria’s new Islamist-led rule stoked fears among minority communities. In July, deadly sectarian clashes in the Druze-majority Sweida province killed more than 2,000 people, according to the Observatory.