Steps taken by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank to stop the spread of the COVID-19 disease, caused by the Coronavirus, give the impression that Palestine is able to function like any other sovereign country desperately fighting to preserve the well-being of its own people. Sadly, however, Palestine remains the exception, as the PA operates fully under a cruel Israeli military occupation that has no regard, whatsoever, for the lives of the Palestinian people. This matters in the case of the COVID-19 as it does in every aspect of Palestinian life. Indeed, for Palestinians, fighting an outbreak of the Coronavirus is not a straightforward matter, even if the dysfunctional PA facilities follow the instructions of the World Health Organisation (WHO) to the letter. more

Until now, the besieged Gaza Strip has stayed free of  the novel coronavirus  spreading across the world. As the Gaza Strip has been under a stringent Israeli-led blockade for nearly 13 years, the spread of the coronavirus - officially known as COVID-19 - has become the topic of discussion for many Palestinians, with  some joking  that the blockade was preventing them from being exposed.But as authorities in the coastal Palestinian enclave gear up to contain any potential outbreak, serious questions have arisen about the risks and implications of such a scenario.  But given its already difficult humanitarian situation and high population density, an outbreak in the Gaza Strip could prove to be catastrophic, health officials have warned.  "If the virus enters Gaza and spreads, it will get out of hand," Gaza Ministry of Health spokesperson Majdi Thuhair told Middle East Eye, as he explained that a severe shortage of resources and personnel would...

The authorities in the Gaza Strip on Saturday decided to close all border crossings with Israel and Egypt to passengers in both directions until further notice as part of precautions to protect the non-affected coastal enclave against the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) . The decision excluded people with life-threatening conditions that need urgent medical treatment outside Gaza. The decision was taken during a meeting between officials from government institutions and some major factions in Gaza The participants in the meeting also agreed on taking other preventative measures to safeguard the population against the global virus. The measures included a decision to retain the closure of schools, universities, kindergartens and other educational institutions until the end of March. more

Two days ago (Friday) a  piece  came out in Haaretz by Hilo Glazer, featuring stories from five anonymous snipers who told how they gunned down unarmed protesters at the March of Return near the Gaza perimeter fence. These accounts are a jaw-dropper, constituting some of the most enraging as well as depressing readings I can recall. The language of the perpetrators of these massacres is testimony to the moral depravity of these young soldiers, who still seem to believe they are fulfilling a sacred duty to defend their country, as well as a damning account of the state and society that supports them and their crimes. more

From MEMO – What if the Coronavirus reaches the besieged Gaza Strip? While the question carries great urgency for all Palestinians living under Israel’s military occupation, the Gaza situation is particularly complex and extremely worrying. Nearly 50 countries have already  reported  cases of COVID-19 disease, one of several epidemics that are caused by the Coronavirus. If developed countries, such as Italy and South Korea, are  struggling  to contain the deadly virus, one can only imagine what occupied Palestinians would have to face should the virus strike. In fact, according to official Palestinian reports, the Coronavirus has already  reached  Palestine following a visit by a South Korean delegation in the period between February 8 and 15, which included a tour in the major Palestinian cities of Jerusalem, Nablus, Jericho, Hebron, and Bethlehem. more

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has rejected accusations from Hamas and reports in Israeli media that it has been preventing Palestinians in the blockaded Gaza Strip from leaving the territory for medical treatment, and said Israel was responsible for denying Gazans the exit permits, which has had fatal consequences in recent weeks. Corroborating earlier reports that the Ramallah-based government was denying culpability, head of the PA’s medical referral department in the southern district Bassam al-Badri told Ma’an that Israel was accountable for the deterioration of the medical situation in Gaza, by denying exit to thousands of patients via the Erez crossing so that they may be treated in hospitals in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem. Al-Badri said that only 50 percent of medical permits were approved as a result of the Israeli restrictions. Health care inside Gaza has greatly suffered as part of the decade-long Israeli siege, with Israel limiting medical equipment allowed in a...

The only electricity plant serving the two million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip has partly resumed operations after an unexpected diesel delivery from neighbouring Egypt. Tankers brought one million litres (220,000 gallons) of fuel into the coastal enclave on Thursday, allowing engineers to partly restart the plant and ease the area’s chronic electricity shortage for the next few days. Hamas, the militant organisation which seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, had been using Qatari and Turkish funding to buy diesel to run the plant from Israel - but has repeatedly accused the West Bank’s Palestinian Authority (PA), which coordinates delivery, of driving up prices through unfair taxation. more

A 17-year-old Palestinian died last week after Israeli authorities refused to allow him to leave the besieged Gaza Strip to undergo treatment for a congenital heart defect, the Gaza-based al-Mezan Center for Human Rights said in a report on Sunday. Israeli authorities had denied Ahmad Hassan Shubeir from Gaza City, permission to cross into Israel to receive life-saving medical treatment from a hospital after the teen “refused to serve as a collaborator for the Israeli authorities, a coercive measure regularly employed on Palestinian patients in need of permits,” according to the center. After being repeatedly denied permission by Israel to cross, despite securing a number of appointments at Israeli hospitals as his health declined, Ahmad died at approximately 4 a.m. on Jan. 14. Ahmad’s father told al-Mezan that his son had been suffering from a congenital heart defect since birth. The father said that he accompanied Ahmad several times to Israeli hospitals, including Tel Hashomer Ho...

The spokesperson of Gaza’s health ministry said in a statement on Friday that the health ministry would face a difficult situation if fuel is not provided to hospitals in the few upcoming hours. Ashraf al-Qadra called upon all competent authorities to quickly intervene and provide fuel for Gaza’s hospitals, noting that the fuel crisis in Gaza is expected to have severe effects on the besieged enclave’s hospitals. The plead came two days after health services in a children’s hospital were suspended due to a lack of fuel to its generators. The ministry of health said at the time that the al-Durrah children’s hospital would be out of commission for 27 hours due to the power shortage, adding that other hospitals across Gaza faced similar risks. more

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, UNRWA, warned on Wednesday of the growth needs of Palestinian refugees, in the Gaza Strip, which exceed their financial support. In its emergency report on the crisis in Gaza, UNRWA noted an increased demand for services resulting from the growth in the number of registered Palestine refugees, the extent of their vulnerability and their deepening poverty. “UNRWA is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions and financial support has been outpaced by the growth in needs. As a result, the UNRWA Programme Budget, which supports the delivery of core essential services, operates with a large shortfall, projected for 2016 to stand at US$ 74 million,” UNRWA said. UNRWA added that its emergency programmes and key projects, also operating with large shortfalls, are funded through separate funding portals. Following the 2014 conflict, $257 million USD has been pledged in support of UNRWA’s emergency shelter programme...

Some 900 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip continue to require medical attention as a result of permanent disabilities they sustained during Israel’s devastating 51-day assault on the small territory that began on July 8, 2014, according to UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees. On the second anniversary of the war, the Gaza Strip’s Shifa hospital had 3,839 registered patients waiting for scheduled operations, more than half of which were classified as major surgeries, according to a statement published Monday by UNRWA, adding that surgical appointments were being scheduled for as far away as 2018. “Some patients are still suffering two years after their injury and need ongoing care. Many others are still waiting for prosthetic limbs. The state of prosthetics in Gaza is still very precarious,” Dr. Mahmoud Matar, an orthopedic surgeon at Gaza’s Shifa hospital told UNRWA. UNRWA stressed in their statement that “The long waiting lists have left many frustrated, sometim...

The Palestinian Prime Minister’s office on Thursday slammed Israel’s decision to cut off water supplies for tens of thousands of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank this week as “inhumane and outrageous.” Rami Hamdallah issued a statement in response to the move by Israel’s national water company Mekorot, which saw water supplies suspended in the municipality of Jenin, several villages in Nablus, as well as the city of Salfit and its surrounding villages. “Israel wants to prevent Palestinians from leading a dignified life and uses its control over our water resources to this end; while illegal Israeli settlements enjoy uninterrupted water service,” Hamdallah said. “Palestinians are forced to spend great sums of money to buy water that is theirs in the first place.” Israelis, including settlers, have access to 300 liters of water per day, according to EWASH, while the West Bank average is around 70 liters, below the World Health Organization's recommended minimum of 100 liters...

From ther Electronic Intifada - It has taken Mansour’s mother a long time to learn to cope with her 12-year-old son’s changing personality. Once a top student, Mansour has become aggressive and disobedient. His grades are down, his mother says, and he suffers night terrors. Mansour’s mother can date his transformation to Israel’s war on Gaza in 2014. “He was a top student before then. He used to be a cheerful boy,” she recalled. During the assault, the family had to evacuate their home and move to a UN shelter, a school that was then also bombed. Since then, Mansour’s mother told The Electronic Intifada, he now prefers to be alone at school or at home. He has also started wetting the bed. “He is easily terrified by loud sounds like thunder,” according to his mother who, like other families interviewed for this story, declined to be named in order to protect their privacy. These are classic signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, though as health care professionals at th...

The Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health sent a medical aid convoy worth over five million shekels ($1,289,720) to Gaza from the ministry's warehouse in Nablus, a statement said Wednesday. The shipment included ten truckloads worth of medical supplies and was sent under direct orders from Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah. The supplies included cancer treatment medications, kidney medications and other supplies needed by residents in the besieged coastal enclave. The ministry noted that the PA has sent numerous truckloads of medical supplies to the Gaza Strip, totaling at least $5.2 million in 2015, not including the most recent shipment. Gaza's ministry of health warned earlier this year that the lives of Gazans were at risk if the Israeli-Egyptian blockade continued. more

From Mondoweiss - As the devastation in Gaza continues unabated, teams of medical professionals work to combat the psychological impact on children raised in that densely populated and blockaded human laboratory. Many of those children have already lived through 3 major military offenses. I saw a photo today of some of those beautiful kids — visiting the graves of their fathers and brothers killed in Gaza during the summer slaughter of 2014 — and wondered how those kids were holding up. Reminded of some people I met who cycle around the globe raising funds for children’s mental health in Gaza, I visited Cycling4Gaza’s (C4G) Facebook page and coincidentally intercepted some drawings they’d posted from the Gaza Mental Healthcare Project, launched in partnership with the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF). The eyes in this drawing bore into me: more

When Maha, a nine-year-old Palestinian girl living in Gaza, visited a doctor to seek treatment for mental health problems she was told not to come back or she would likely be stigmatised for life, ruining her marriage prospects. Despite high levels of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety and depression in the Palestinian territory, mental health experts say families often avoid seeking help for their daughters for fear of wrecking the family reputation and the girl's chances of finding a husband. "There is a general stigma and lack of awareness around mental health," said Bassam Abu Hamad, a public health consultant at Al Quds University in Gaza. "People think mental health problems are something to do with the devil and supernatural forces. They think that people with such problems have lost their minds and are crazy." Hamad says Maha's story highlights the worrying gaps in mental health services in Gaza, the cultural barriers girls face in ac...

Until this summer, not a single one of the homes totally destroyed during Israel’s assault on Gaza last year had been rebuilt. Why? The Israeli rights group Gisha, which monitors Israel’s siege of Gaza, tries to provides answers in a recent analysis, “Where’s the housing boom?” The 51-day assault last summer destroyed or rendered uninhabitable 19,000 homes. More than 100,000 were damaged and more than 100,000 people in Gaza remain without permanent shelter. A major reason for the fact that reconstruction is only just beginning is that between last August’s ceasefire and the end of July this year, Israel has allowed into Gaza just 6.5 percent of the construction supplies needed to repair years of destruction and accumulated housing needs. But the story is more complex than that. “Dual use” A basic fact is that Israel still tightly regulates what comes in and out of Gaza, home to 1.8 million Palestinians. Starting in June 2007, Israel has totally banned or severely restricted the...

From the Electronic Intifada - Nabeel Muhammad’s job would be demanding under any circumstances. He is a nurse working with seriously ill patients. The difficulties that he faces have been multiplied by a power crisis in the Gaza Strip. “The machines in the intensive care units do not work without electricity,” he explained. Incubators for premature babies in al-Aqsa hospital in central Gaza, where he is based, have even been affected. The problems besetting this hospital illustrate how it has been under constant attack by one means or another for many years. In July 2014, it was shelled during Operation Protective Edge, Israel’s 51-day bombardment of Gaza. The power cuts that imperil the provision of basic services across Gaza have occurred repeatedly since Israel bombed the Strip’s only power plant in 2006. Zauhdia Attia — also known as Um Waleed — receives treatment for a kidney complaint at the same hospital. The 56-year-old is supposed to undergo dialysis four or five times a w...

rusalem, 8 August 2015: The infant mortality rate in Gaza has risen for the first time in five decades, according to an UNRWA study, and UNRWA’s Health Director says the blockade may be contributing to the trend. Every five years, UNRWA conducts a survey of infant mortality across the region, and the 2013 results were released this week. The number of babies dying before the age of one has consistently gone down over the last decades in Gaza, from 127 per 1,000 live births in 1960 to 20.2 in 2008. At the last count, in 2013, it had risen to 22.4 per 1,000 live births. The rate of neonatal mortality, which is the number of babies that die before four weeks old, has also gone up significantly in Gaza, from 12 per 1,000 live births in 2008 to 20.3 in 2013. “Infant mortality is one of the best indicators for the health of the community,” said Dr. Akihiro Seita, Director of UNRWA’s health program. “It reflects on the mother and child’s health and in the U.N. Millennium Development Goals...

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- A heat wave sweeping across the occupied Palestinian territories has brought further suffering to Gazan residents whose homes were destroyed during last summer's deadly Gaza war. "All the citizens who live in caravans are in very dire and disastrous living conditions," said 60-year-old Abu Ahmad, who lives in a mobile home in the Khuzaa neighborhood of Khan Younis in southern Gaza. "Death is better than our life." Abu Ahmad said that since the war ended a year ago, his children had left him to live with their grandfather as conditions inside the mobile homes were too poor. "We are humans, not animals, and we can't live in these caravans," he said. The 60-year-old urged the Palestinian authorities to help improve living conditions for displaced Gazans, saying: "We are not asking for the unattainable, and we don't want them to put us in paradise." "All we are asking for is to speed up reconstruction of...