<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body>
<div id="toolbar" class="toolbar-container"> </div>
<div class="container" style="--line-height:1.6em;" dir="ltr">
<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <font
size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/how-israel-obstructs-covid-19-care-east-jerusalem">https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/how-israel-obstructs-covid-19-care-east-jerusalem</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">How Israel obstructs COVID-19 care in
East Jerusalem</h1>
<p class="node__submitted">
<span class="field field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/tamara-nassar">Tamara
Nassar</a></span> <span class="field field-blog">-</span>
<span class="field field-publication-date"><span
class="date-display-single"
content="2020-07-23T13:41:10+00:00">23 July 2020</span></span>
</p>
</div>
<hr>
<div class="content">
<div class="moz-reader-content reader-show-element">
<div id="readability-page-1" class="page">
<div>
<article>
<figure id="file-94301"><source media="(min-width:
72rem)"><figcaption><small><span></span></small></figcaption></figure>
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic is not an equalizer.</p>
<p>Rather, it has exposed systems of inequality in
seemingly modern health care systems and brought
already worn-down ones to the brink of collapse.</p>
<p>The case of occupied East Jerusalem is particularly
revealing.</p>
<p>The pandemic unmasked and exacerbated the horrors of
Israeli military occupation in the city, according to
a new <a
href="http://www.alhaq.org/publications/17118.html">report</a>
by the Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq, the
UK-based charity Medical Aid for Palestinians and the
Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center.</p>
<p>Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967 and formally
annexed it in 1980.</p>
<p>Israel has specific obligations under international
law to guarantee health and other basic services to
Palestinians living under its military rule.</p>
<p>Far from respecting its obligations, Israel’s
systemic neglect and continuous violence in East
Jerusalem became increasingly evident during the
pandemic.</p>
<p>Israel took a business as usual approach when it came
to oppressing Palestinians.</p>
<p>The Israeli authorities failed to set up COVID-19
testing facilities in a timely manner, failed to
provide accurate and reliable data to track the spread
of the virus, harassed and arrested Palestinian health
activists, and hindered the procurement of essential
equipment by hospitals.</p>
<p>“Palestinians have become ill-equipped to deal with
any public health crisis, let alone the outbreak of a
pandemic such as COVID-19,” the report states.</p>
<h2>Lack of testing facilities</h2>
<p>It took more than one month from the first confirmed
coronavirus case in Israel for it to set up a testing
facility in East Jerusalem.</p>
<p>The drive-through facility was installed in the Jabal
al-Mukabbir neighborhood, which lies outside Israel’s
annexation wall, following legal pressure from
Palestinian human rights groups.</p>
<p>It was nearly two months later that Israel set up
testing centers beyond the wall, and it was only done
after Adalah, a human rights group, filed a petition
with Israel’s high court.</p>
<p>The delays in carrying out testing for Palestinians
were discriminatory by nature as they “sharply
contrast with the urgency and speed in reacting to the
needs of the Israeli-Jewish population.”</p>
<p>The “discriminatory” delays were arguably what “most
powerfully articulates” Israel’s neglect in
containment efforts.</p>
<p>But delays were not the only problems.</p>
<p>“Eligibility to be tested in these facilities is
conditioned upon membership in a private Israeli
health maintenance organization, which a significant
portion of Palestinians lack,” the report states.</p>
<p>Israel gives free health care to official Palestinian
residents of East Jerusalem, who account for only 40
percent of its population.</p>
<p>When Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967, it only
counted Palestinians who were physically present in
the city.</p>
<p>Those who were abroad for any reason – including work
and study – were not counted and they were
“arbitrarily stripped of their residency rights in
Jerusalem.”</p>
<p>Until this day, Palestinians must prove that their
“center of life” is in Jerusalem in order to live in
the city where they were born.</p>
<h2>Decentralized tracking</h2>
<p>Tracking the number of confirmed cases in East
Jerusalem has been an inconsistent and unreliable
process.</p>
<p>Due to the nature of Israel’s annexation of East
Jerusalem, Israel’s health ministry is the only body
that has access to figures on Palestinians infected by
the virus in the city.</p>
<p>In the absence of disaggregated data, according to
the report, three different bodies count the number of
confirmed cases: Israel’s health ministry, the
Israeli-controlled Jerusalem municipality and groups
within the Jerusalem Alliance to Confront the
Coronavirus Pandemic.</p>
<p>This has created a disparity in numbers, and so
neither the Palesitnian Authority’s health ministry
nor the World Health Organization has a clear outlook
on the scale of the outbreak in East Jerusalem.</p>
<h2>Hospital neglect and defunding</h2>
<p>The effects of Israel’s chronic neglect and weakening
of Palestinian hospitals in East Jerusalem became
evident during the pandemic.</p>
<p>Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza
depend on hospitals in East Jerusalem for care they
cannot receive elsewhere.</p>
<p>Three hospitals in East Jerusalem have been
designated for coronavirus care: al-Makassed Hospital,
Augusta Victoria Hospital and Saint Joseph Hospital.</p>
<p>“The pandemic hit at a time when all of these
hospitals were already facing exceptionally dire
economic conditions and chronic underfunding,” the
report states.</p>
<p>In 2018, the Trump administration <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/trump-targets-sick-palestinians">slashed</a>
more than $25 million in approved aid for six
hospitals in East Jerusalem.</p>
<p>Combined, the three hospitals designated for COVID-19
care only have 22 ventilators and 62 beds for
coronavirus patients.</p>
<p>While Palestinians can seek medical treatment in
Israeli hospitals, “the availability of Israeli
hospitals also does not absolve the Israeli occupying
authorities from responsibility for the deliberate
weakening, de-development and systematic neglect of
Palestinian hospitals in East Jerusalem,” the report
says.</p>
<h2>Attacking health activists</h2>
<p>Israeli forces persisted in their attacks on health
activists during the pandemic.</p>
<p>Israel systematically targeted and arrested activists
distributing informative leaflets around the city, and
detained Palestinians volunteering to disinfect public
spaces, such as mosques.</p>
<p>Israeli forces even raided a testing facility in the
Silwan area, initially arguing that it was run by
unlicensed doctors and then claiming the pretext of
the closure was that the facility’s activities were
overseen by the Palestinian Authority.</p>
<p>In fact, the doctor administering the facility was
licensed by Israel, he confirmed to the human rights
groups who compiled the new report.</p>
<p>“Regardless of the pretext, the very fact that
Palestinians were forced to set up a testing center on
their own, and the subsequent closure of the center by
the occupying power, is a testament to Israel’s
consistent failure to meet its obligations to uphold
the rights to health and life of Palestinians without
discrimination.”</p>
<p>There are <a href="https://www.ochaopt.org/covid-19">currently</a>
almost 12,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the
occupied West Bank. This includes more than 2,100 in
East Jerusalem.</p>
<p>There are 75 confirmed cases in the Gaza Strip. So
far, 70 Palestinians have died of the disease.</p>
<p>By denying basic health care to Palestinians – and,
worse, attacking their health care facilities – Israel
has made it inevitable that the death toll will rise.</p>
<br>
</article>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://freedomarchives.org/">https://freedomarchives.org/</a></div>
</body>
</html>