Palestinians at a demonstration in Gaza City demand coronavirus protection for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, March 19. (photo: Ali Jadallah / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Israel has for decades intentionally weakened the economy and health of the world’s largest open-air prison.
By Neve Gordon |The Nation | Mar 25, 2020
…while our governments emphasize the significance of washing hands many times a day, Gazans are worried about having enough water to drink.
When people began posting the following note on their Facebook wall, I immediately felt an intense sense of unease.
Palestinian members of the civil defense disinfect the streets as a preventive measure amid fears of the spread of the coronavirus, in Khan Younis in the southern of Gaza Strip, on March 23, 2020. (photo: Ashraf Amra/APA Images)
Lifting sanctions on Gaza and Iran would be a step towards global public health efforts.
By Dr. Alice Rothchild | Mondoweiss | Mar 26, 2020
Clearly, this is a time of grave urgency and the need for forward, global thinking. To survive as a planet, we need to take care of each other, it’s as basic as that.
The announcement that nine cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in Gaza filled me with a new level of anxiety and despair. Gaza is at the beginning of the pandemic curve. With two million people crowded together in area six by twenty-five miles, 70 percent are refugees, 97 percent of the water contaminated and unfit for consumption, basic measures to prevent the spread of the virus will prove challenging. With above a 50 percent unemployment rate and a lack of supplies due to restrictions on the import of goods, it is impossible for families to stock up on essential items and shelter in place, let alone practice social distancing.
Palestinians receive food aid from UNRWA at a warehouse in Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, Sept. 10, 2013. (photo: Ashraf Amra / APA Images)
Cutting off funds to Palestine during a global pandemic would have devastating consequences.
By Michael Arria | Mondoweiss | Mar 24, 2020
‘If we do not receive additional pledges or those who have pledged do not make good on existing pledges, then we will run out of money at the end of next month,’ — UNRWA’s acting- Commissioner General Christian Saunders
In 2018, the Trump administration cut all funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Over five million people in the region rely on the organization for social services, but now their work has become even more crucial in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis.
Mondoweiss’s Yumna Patel produced this video in September 2018 outlining the potentially devestating impacts of the cuts:
A man wears a face mask to protect against coronavirus inside the almost-deserted al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem on 20 March. (photo: AFP)
The prospect of a Netanyahu-led unity government looms. How did we get here?
By Richard Silverstein | Middle East Eye | Mar 23, 2020
Best-selling author and historian Yuval Noah Harari has called these maneuvers ‘the first coronavirus dictatorship’.
Israel’s governing Likud party did not win the latest election, but it continues to cling to power, exploiting every dirty trick in the book. Now, it looks like it may well stay there.
The centre-right bloc dominated by the Blue and White alliance had edged past the 60-seat threshold to form a government, and on 15 March President Reuven Rivlin tasked party leader Benny Gantz with doing so.
Flash forward to 20 March and Gantz is saying, for the first time, that he would be willing to sit in a national unity government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Rabbi Daniel Lehmann during his recent inauguration as president of the Graduate Theological Union. (photo: GTU)
Amid concerns about Rabbi Lehmann’s ‘Islamophobic statements and anti-Palestinian views,’ the GTU board accepted his resignation.
By If Americans Knew staff | If Americans Knew Blog | Mar 21, 2020
Upon being named GTU president in 2018, Lehmann’s statements to news media suggested that he had expected to change what he called GTU’s ‘progressive Christian’ orientation.
Rabbi Daniel Lehmann has resigned as president of the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) after concerns surfaced about his ‘Islamophobic statements and anti-Palestinian views’. GTU is reportedly “the most comprehensive center for the graduate study of religion in North America.”
Based in Berkeley, California, GTU has long been known for its commitment to justice, peace, and interfaith cooperation. It consists of eight Christian schools and nine academic centers and affiliates. It includes diverse faiths, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism.
Upon being named GTU president in 2018, Lehmann’s statements to news media suggested that he had expected to change what he called GTU’s “progressive Christian” orientation.
A worker wearing protective gear sprays disinfectant as a precaution against the coronavirus, in Gaza City. (photo: Adel Hana / The Associated Press)
Who could have imagined just a few days ago that Europeans would be confined to their homes and become persona non grata all over the world?
By Ahmed Abbes | Mondoweiss | Mar 18, 2020
How can I not think of the residents of Gaza who are prisoners of an inhuman blockade that has lasted for more than 13 years when I find myself confined to my home, forbidden to leave my house except for 5 reasons set by the government and provided that I have a certificate?
I should have been in Tunis Saturday March 14 to participate in the closing ceremony of Israeli Apartheid Week. I had invited the Palestinian researcher and documentalist Tarek Barki to give a lecture entitled “We Were and Still Are.. Here” which tells the past and the present of the ethnically cleansed Palestinian villages refuting the Zionist formula “a land without people… ” But by the end of the previous week, disturbing news about the spread of the Coronavirus in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa was starting to accumulate. Death in my soul, I resolved, Monday, March 9, with my friends, to postpone this long-awaited lecture to a later date. Since then, bad news has continued to pour in at an infernal rate.
The risks continue to grow for detained Palestinian children.
By Michael Arria | Mondoweiss | Mar 20, 2020
‘There is no way Israeli prison authorities can ensure the health and well-being of Palestinian child detainees as long as they continue to be in a custodial detention setting.’ — Ayed Abu Eqtaish, DCIP Accountability Program director
Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCIP) is calling on the Israeli government to release all Palestinian child detainees amid the COVID-19 crisis. According to Ha’aretz, Israel has confirmed over 700 cases of COVID-19 and four Palestinian prisoners, being held at Megiddo prison, have been in contact with an Israeli officer who tested positive for the virus.
“Israeli authorities must take immediate action to release all Palestinian child detainees in Israeli prisons and detention centers due to the increasing vulnerability created due to the rapid global spread of the COVID-19 virus and to safeguard their right to life, survival, development, and health in accordance with international law,” reads the group’s press release.
Ongoing effort by faith groups for humanitarian efforts.
By Palestine Israel Network | Global Ministries | Mar 18, 2020
In mid-February, Rep. Pocan (D-Wisc.) and Rep. Dingell (D-Mich.) sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, urging the Trump administration to alleviate the ongoing crisis by restoring all humanitarian assistance and working to end the Gaza blockade.
The Gaza Strip faces a chronic humanitarian crisis, impacting the livelihoods and access to essential services by its two million residents. The United Nations predicted in 2012 that conditions in Gaza would be unlivable by the year 2020 as a result of the Israeli blockade for more than 12 years. This crisis has been driven also by an unsolved internal Palestinian divide. Since March 2018, the crisis has been exacerbated by the massive increase in Palestinian casualties in the context of demonstrations taking place near Israel’s perimeter fence, as well as limited escalations in hostilities between Israel and Palestinian armed groups.
Palestinians argue with an Israeli soldier as Israeli near the village of Qusra, in the West Bank, on March 3, 2020. (photo: Mohamad Torokman / Reuters)
A surreal situation is unfolding revealing many ironies not lost on Palestinians.
By Gideon Levy | Haaretz | Mar 19, 2020
The irony of fate: For the first time, Israel is tasting some of the hell it has been dishing out for decades to its subjects.
The heavens have darkened and everything is closing in around us. Only fate, God or the shaper of history are laughing at us from up high, a bitter, ironic laughter. The irony of fate: For the first time, Israel is tasting some of the hell it has been dishing out for decades to its subjects. With alarming speed, Israelis have entered a reality known to every Palestinian child.
Even the terms have been borrowed from the occupation: Israel is on its way to a lockdown, the army is taking over hotels, the Shin Bet security service is taking over our cellphones, and the Border Police and its checkpoints are right around the corner. It’s no coincidence that Haaretz’s military analyst has been recruited to serve as the coronavirus analyst. In a day or two Tel Aviv will resemble Jenin and Israel will be like the Gaza Strip. What is routine there has become a frightening dystopia here.
Of course, the differences are many. What for us constitutes the end of the world would for them be an easing of the closure, with the pandemic looming over everyone. Still, we can’t but marvel at the similarities. First, the state of siege. The gates are practically locked. No one leaves or enters.
Palestinians holding flags of Palestine, march to protest against US President Donald Trump’s so-called Middle East peace plan on 1 February 2020. (photo: Mostafa Alkharouf / Anadolu Agency)
Economic incentives being offered will not succeed as long as the occupation and its infrastructure are in place.
By Dr. Adnan Abu Amer | Middle East Monitor | Mar 16, 2020
In view of the imminent collapse of the PA, Palestinian capitalists are seeking to control decision-making and strengthen the link between the Palestinian economy and Israel’s.
Given the Palestinians’ rejection of Donald Trump’s “deal of the century”, there is talk about “buying” their approval with financial inducements and privileges. Political pressure will be exerted until they consent.
The so-called “peace plan” was unveiled piecemeal, first at the Bahrain Conference last June, under the banner of “Peace for Prosperity”. Washington had already imposed its policy to strangle the Palestinians so that they would surrender and accept the deal. Not only was US aid to UNRA cut from $359 million in 2017 to $65 million in 2018, but it was also stopped altogether in 2019.
The economic aspect of the deal is built upon donor countries and investors contributing $50 billion, of which $28 billion is earmarked for the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, with $9 billion going to Egypt, $7.5 billion to Jordan and $6 billion to Lebanon. This is in addition to $15 billion in subsidies, $25 billion in subsidized loans and the balance from private capital.
![A worker wearing protective gear sprays disinfectant as a precaution against the coronavirus, in Gaza City [Adel Hana/The Associated Press]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2020/3/19/90eeefcca68e4b00ab284e19088b8e47_18.jpg)
![Palestinians holding flags of Palestine, march to protest against US President Donald Trump’s so-called Middle East peace plan on 1 February 2020 [Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu Agency]](https://i1.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/20200201_2_40625948_51733481-1-scaled.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&quality=85&strip=all&ssl=1)
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