Like thousands of Palestinians in Gaza Strip, so is the Um Jihad Gababin left her home without taking anything with her, not even a mask to protect herself from covid-19. Because in front of his bombings Israel, The pandemic does not seem to her the most immediate threat, reports APE.
While Israeli missiles have been falling on Palestinian enclave for 10 days With a population of two million, this mother of six has fled her home in the northern Gaza Strip and taken refuge in a UNRWA school, a UN service that helps Palestinian refugees.
“We have not taken a shower once since we arrived on Friday,” he said. “There are long interruptions in the water supply and a complete lack of hygiene,” he complains.
For Adnan Abu Hasna, According to UNRWA, the approximately 50 schools that have been converted into shelters for the approximately 40,000 displaced people may be “Coronavirus outbreaks” in the Palestinian enclave, which has been under Israeli blockade since 2008.
The UN service provides the displaced with antiseptic, water and hygiene recommendations, but all of this is a waste of time, he admits.
Because in schools as well as in the streets of Gaza, everyone has left their masks and forgotten the distances after the outbreak of the new conflict between Hamas and Israel.
“Israel’s ongoing attacks undermine all our efforts to tackle the coronavirus,” he said. Ashraf al Kundra, a representative of the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
The Israeli bombing on Monday destroyed a clinic and ministry offices in Gaza City, as well as the only laboratory in the pocket where diagnostic tests for covid-19 were performed. Two doctors were also killed.
The protection of medical infrastructure and health personnel is “mandatory under any circumstances”, the Secretary-General of the World Health Organization, Tantros, Antanom Gebregesous, stressed on Monday. “It is vital that international humanitarian rules are respected.”
Unbearable situation
“If the medical team had tested here at the school, 80% of people would have been positive for the coronavirus,” said Salem al-Attar, 38, who went to a UNRWA school after his home was destroyed in an Israeli raid.
Prior to the military escalation, the Gaza authorities conducted an average of about 1,600 tests a day, with the positivity rate being one of the highest in the world (26%).
According to the WHO, about 9,000 people with covid-19 have been identified in the Palestinian enclave since the start of hostilities on May 10. In all, more than 105,600 people in Gaza have been infected with the coronavirus and 986 have died. Of the 122,000 doses that have been reached, about half have been given, according to the WHO.
In hospitals, the intensive care units are full, with some institutions now proceeding with reorganizations. Some units dedicated to covid-19 were closed or relocated to accommodate the hundreds injured in Israeli raids.
“Of course I’m afraid of catching a coronavirus, but that will be easier than Israeli missiles,” said Um Jihad Gabagin.
“Rockets are killing us, and the virus is causing coughing and fever,” said Fouad, the 8-year-old son.
On the other side of the school yard, 65-year-old Umm Mansour al-Kurum is crying. A neighbor who lived in their neighborhood in the eastern Gaza Strip just told her on the phone that half of her house had been destroyed. “The situation is unbearable, the coronavirus and the war at the same time (…) I can no longer stand,” he says.

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