Move FM Global News

TEL AVIV, Israel- A token initiative by the Israeli army to carry out Covid-19 tests of Gazans has been torpedoed by the country’s defense minister.

The army had begun testing members of the Gazan population for coronavirus this week, but after two days Defense Minister Naftali Bennett canceled the arrangement because he had not been consulted about it.

Gaza has been under a blockade for the past fourteen years and has scant medical supplies and health facilities. While Israel does not formally occupy the tiny Gaza Strip, it polices all entry by land to and from the area, and controls sea-lines and airspace. The heavily fortified border is border is vigorously defended and any Palestinian who approaches the border is likely to be shot.

The Israeli army initiative had been set up to test 50 Palestinians a day. Only 100 people had been tested by the time it was canceled on Wednesday. At the rate of testing it would take 110 years for the Strip’s two million population, 55% of whom are children according to the UN, to be tested.

There is concern that a major outbreak could occur in Gaza because of its deprived health system and lack of medical supplies.

Earlier this year, Prof. Raphi Walden, president of Physicians for Human Rights, in talking to The Jerusalem Post, described the situation in Gaza as “appalling Just terrible conditions. The main hospital in Gaza has empty shelves, they are missing critical medications. There was a time they did not have the liquid needed to clean the skin before surgery. Everything is missing. It is a real humanitarian disaster there.”

The Israeli army is concerned that an outbreak could pose a threat to Israel. Why the extent of it’s testing was so meager is unclear.

Seventeen cases of the virus have been registered by the Gazan health ministry so far but testing has been negligible. It is believed some thousands of people are in quarantine with suspected symptoms awaiting testing.

The Palestinian Authority and the World Health Organization are carrying out testing but the supply of testing kits is believed to be extremely limited.

Late last month it was reported that Arab countries were supplying Israel with four million testing kits, but only hundreds were being supplied to Gaza.

Israel’s stand-off with Gaza is coming under scrutiny not just from humanitarian groups. “We created the largest jail on earth in Gaza,” Israel’s former head of the country’s security agency Shin Bet, Ami Ayalon was quoted as saying by The Jerusalem Post on 26 March.

“We treat almost two million people as prisoners. Let’s assume they are bad guys and that’s why we keep them in jail. Even prisoners in jail have some rights and we have a responsibility when it comes to these prisoners,” he said.

Ramadan meantime is due to start across the Arab world. While the Israeli army has been forced to halt testing for coronavirus it, for the past two weeks ahead of Ramadan, has been delivering food and other supplies to Muslim families that reside in Israel.