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<font size="1"><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-makes-covid-much-worse-palestinians">https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-makes-covid-much-worse-palestinians</a>
</font><h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Israel makes COVID much worse for Palestinians</h1>
<p class="gmail-node__submitted">
<span class="gmail-field gmail-field-author"><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/maureen-clare-murphy">Maureen Clare Murphy</a></span> <span class="gmail-field gmail-field-blog">-</span>
<span class="gmail-field gmail-field-publication-date"><span class="gmail-date-display-single">8 December 2020</span></span> </p>
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<img src="https://electronicintifada.net/sites/default/files/styles/original_800w/public/2020-12/201208-gaza-coronavirus.jpg?itok=Y4YPkLP3×tamp=1607465992" alt="" title="" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="434" height="289"><p>A coronavirus patient is treated at al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, on 6 December.</p><small>
<span>APA images</span></small><p>On Sunday, the health ministry in Gaza <a href="https://mezan.org/en/post/23886">announced</a> that it had halted testing for COVID-19 after running out of supplies.</p>
<p>Additional testing kits were <a href="https://twitter.com/WHOoPt/status/1335994275713126407">delivered</a> by the World Health Organization the next day, staving off a full-blown emergency – for the time being.</p>
<p>The interruption in testing came as one-third of COVID-19 test
results in Gaza were coming back positive – a very high rate that likely
indicates that not enough testing is being done in the first place.</p>
<p>Of those confirmed cases, 20 percent were serious or critical. More
than 150 people in Gaza have died from the coronavirus so far.</p>
<h2>Fears become reality</h2>
<p>From the beginning, there were <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/coronavirus-would-see-collapse-gaza-health-system">well-founded fears</a> that the pandemic would do disproportionate harm in Gaza.</p>
<p>With community transmission now seemingly out of control, those fears may soon become reality.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.un.org/unispal/document/gaza-unliveable-un-special-rapporteur-for-the-situation-of-human-rights-in-the-opt-tells-third-committee-press-release-excerpts/">“unlivable”</a> Gaza Strip is home to some two million people – more than 40 percent of them <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/gz.html">aged 14 years old or younger</a>, two-thirds of them refugees – confined to its 139 square miles. It is one of the most densely populated places in the world.</p>
<p>It also has one of the <a href="https://unctad.org/news/israeli-occupation-cost-gaza-167-billion-past-decade-unctad-estimates">highest unemployment rates</a> on the planet and more than half of its residents live in poverty.</p>
<p>Like every other sector in Gaza, the healthcare system has
deteriorated after more than 13 years of siege and repeated brutal
Israeli military offensives. Gaza’s medical centers were still <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/adding-pandemic-injury/31266">reeling</a> from an epidemic of <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/who-sanitizes-israeli-responsibility-gaza-killings">catastrophic injuries</a> caused by Israel’s use of live fire against civilian protesters when the pandemic hit.</p>
<p><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/gaza-unemployment-soars-medicine-stocks-hit-zero">Shortages</a> of essential medical supplies – to say nothing of <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/surgeries-cut-one-third-gazas-main-hospital/20601">electricity</a> and <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/gaza-hospitals-about-run-out-fuel">fuel</a> to operate generators during power outages – are nothing new in Gaza.</p>
<p>At the end of November, the health ministry in the territory reported
that it had less than a one-month supply of nearly half of all
essential medicines. It also had critical shortages of medical
disposables.</p>
<h2>“Permanent emergency”</h2>
<p>For years, Gaza’s medical system has been on the <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/gaza-brink-systemic-collapse-icrc-warns">brink of collapse</a>.
This is part of the “permanent emergency” borne by Israel’s regime of
occupation, colonization and apartheid, as the human rights group Al-Haq
states in a <a href="https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/17622.html">new position paper</a> on COVID-19 and Palestinians’ right to health.</p>
<p>“COVID-19 poses a disproportionate and substantial threat to a
Palestinian society deliberately denied for decades the right to develop
a functioning healthcare system,” according to Al-Haq.</p>
<p>This is a direct result of “apartheid policies and practices imposed
by Israel’s prolonged occupation,” the Palestinian group adds.</p>
<p>Palestinians have been fragmented into “distinct legal, political and geographic domains,” Al-Haq explains.</p>
<p>These distinct domains include Palestinians living under
discriminatory Israeli civil law within Israel; those with permanent
residency status in occupied and illegally annexed East Jerusalem;
Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank
and Gaza Strip; and Palestinian refugees and exiles in the diaspora who
are denied by Israel their right to return.</p>
<p>Gaza, under a severe economic blockade and exacerbated Israeli
closures since 2007, has been cut off from the West Bank, which has been
divided up into enclaves with differing degrees of limited Palestinian
self-rule.</p>
<p>This fragmentation is a key strategy of Israel’s apartheid regime, a <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/landmark-un-report-backs-israel-boycott">2017 study</a> by the UN Economic and Social Commission found.</p>
<p>“This geographic division creates a complex system of dependency upon
Israel,” Al-Haq states, “and its overarching military and security
apparatus, which controls all movement of people and goods, as well as
access to healthcare for Palestinians.”</p>
<h2>Political and historic forces</h2>
<p>Israel’s prolonged occupation, colonization and apartheid have
deprived Palestinians of their means of subsistence, according to
Al-Haq.</p>
<p>Humanitarian aid, like the COVID testing kits provided by WHO,
addresses gaps in basic services. But it does not remedy the persistent
and pervasive violation of Palestinians’ basic rights.</p>
<p>Beyond Israeli movement restrictions, the ongoing denial of
Palestinian self-determination “remains a major impediment to the full
and progressive realization of Palestinians’ economic, social and
cultural rights, including to health,” Al-Haq states.</p>
<p>Palestinians are denied access to clean water and adequate sanitation
while political prisoners held by Israel face “overcrowded and
unsanitary detention conditions,” the rights group adds.</p>
<p>“The political and historic forces to which Palestinians have been
subjected compound their susceptibility to COVID-19,” according to
Al-Haq.</p>
<p>Israel, as the occupying power, is legally – not just morally –
obliged to provide essential supplies to the civilians living under its
rule.</p>
<h2>International inaction</h2>
<p>Like so many of its obligations, Israel flouts its legal duties as third states look on and do almost nothing.</p>
<p>“As COVID-19 compounds Palestinian oppression, international justice
and accountability are needed now more than ever to bring an end to
Israeli impunity,” Al-Haq states.</p>
<p>The group is calling for “a full, thorough and comprehensive
investigation by the International Criminal Court” and for the
implementation of recommendations of prior UN inquiries into Israel’s
violations of Palestinian rights.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the heads of the European Union’s diplomatic
missions in Ramallah and Jerusalem visited Gaza for the first time since
2016.</p>
<p>This remarkably long absence belies their claim that “Gaza remains a priority for the EU and its member states.”</p>
<p>Though it acknowledges the dire “humanitarian crisis” in Gaza, the EU’s <a href="https://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/palestine-occupied-palestinian-territory-west-bank-and-gaza-strip/90103/european-union-heads-mission-visit-gaza_en">statement on the visit</a>
barely mentions Israel’s responsibility for the situation and makes no
mention at all of its obligations as the occupying power.</p>
<p>Instead, EU Representative Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff issued a generic
call that “all duty bearers should act now and respect their obligations
under international law.”</p>
<p>The EU boasts of its humanitarian funding for Gaza’s “suffering” population.</p>
<p>But it is precisely because of the EU’s stubborn unwillingness to
hold Israel directly accountable that the Palestinian doctors who
briefed its diplomats on Tuesday face such “unprecedented challenges.”</p><br>
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