A second wave of coronavirus infections sweeping the Israeli-occupied West Bank is fueling fears of a surge in overcrowded Palestinian refugee camps where social distancing is next to impossible.
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March, the Palestinian Authority quickly imposed a lockdown as it sought to contain infections.
But after Israel and later the PA eased restrictions in late April and May, the number of cases rose again, exacerbated by breaches of limits on public assembly and movement.
One major driver has been Palestinian workers going to and from jobs in neighboring Israel, according to the PA.
The Jewish state went into lockdown in mid-March, but after easing restrictions it started reporting 1,000 to 2,000 new coronavirus infections a day and re-imposed some restrictions.
The Palestinian health ministry’s Tuesday update logged more than 10,860 confirmed cases of infection since the start of the pandemic, including more than 75 deaths.
That compares with an accumulated total of less than 2,700 infections and seven deaths as recently as July 1.
The growing health crisis is causing concern in the camps.
The United Nations defines about five million Palestinians as having refugee status.
They are the survivors and descendants of the more than 700,000 who were expelled or fled their land over a few months in 1948 when Israel was founded.
More than 1.5 million of them live in camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the Gaza Strip the West Bank and Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.
They are assisted by the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which provides them with medical aid and manages schools.
In Al-Amari camp, near Ramallah in the West Bank, an estimated 8,000 people live packed into less than one square kilometer.
UNRWA describes the camp as suffering “significant overcrowding issues.”
“There is neither room to impose distancing nor space to carry out quarantines”, said Taha Al-Bess, an official on the camp’s residents’ committee.
Source: JT
