Israeli Minister Yuval Steinitz speaks at Thursday’s groundbreaking ceremony. Photo: Yehoshua Deston.

JNS.org – The One Israel Fund held a groundbreaking ceremony on Thursday for its new Binyamin Medical Center (BMC), the first major medical facility in the West Bank.

When construction is completed, the center will serve more than 75,000 Israelis living in 45 communities in the Binyamin region, as well as tens of thousands of nearby Palestinian residents.

The new BMC facility will provide state-of-the-art emergency medical care and encourage coexistence by providing treatment to “residents of the Binyamin region, Palestinian and Israeli alike,” said Rabbi David Marcus, senior development officer of the One Israel Fund.

Although Binyamin is the largest geographical regional council in Israel, medical services for the area’s residents are said to be insufficient. Binyamin residents in need of medical care must currently travel to Jerusalem to receive treatment — a commute of up to 90 minutes in some cases.

The BMC aims to “have a transformative impact on the Binyamin region, bringing life-saving medical care and peace of mind to residents who now live with the fear and uncertainty of not knowing whether they will be able to reach a hospital in the event of an emergency,” said Marcus.

“The center will improve the region’s security and quality of life,” he added.

At Thursday’s ceremony, Israeli Minister of National Infrastructure, Energy and Water Resources Yuval Steinitz said, “This center is only a beginning, it is the nucleus for the establishment of a hospital in the future. There will be a hospital here. I am now preparing master plans for the water sector for years ahead, which take into account a million settlers in Judea and Samaria. I hope that a maternity ward will be the hospital’s largest ward standing here in the future.”