In the last weeks, as the pandemic of coronavirus expands across the globe, we have witnessed an intensification of Israel’s policies of discrimination against the Palestinian population. While targeting its health measures to the Israeli population, it has failed to secure any measurement towards the Palestinian sectors. Moreover, it is prosecuting and obstructing any defense this population might have. To continue with this dynamic, it might lead to a real genocide of the Palestinian population, actively promoted by the Israeli government.
Paradoxically, and according to French journalist Anthony Bellanger, in Israel: “While Netanyahu continues stating that Israeli Arabs are a time-bomb about to explode”, Israeli Arab doctors represent a sixth of the total amount of doctors in Israel. One nurse out of four is also Arab, as well as half of the pharmacists in Israel. All of them are working relentlessly to save lives, without distinction.
Jwish Defense League graffiti in West bank. Palestine.
Another Palestinian clinic was shut down and several Palestinian activists were arrested by Israeli forces in the occupied East Jerusalem on Tuesday 16th April.
The Israeli raid was the latest action taken by the Israeli army to curtail Palestinian efforts aimed at containing the spread of the deadly coronavirus in Palestine.
The makeshift clinic was set up in a local mosque in the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan, which has suffered many such army raids in the past.
Israeli police in Jerusalem, April 6, 2020. Ohad Zwigenberg
“There is a shortage of coronavirus tests in Silwan, where doctors say there are 40 confirmed cases and where overcrowded living conditions could lead to a rapid spread of the virus,” the clinic’s director told the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz.
According to the Israeli paper, the main reason behind the Israeli government action is to prevent “any Palestinian Authority activity in Jerusalem.”
The Israeli raid was the latest action taken by the Israeli army to curtail Palestinian efforts aimed at containing the spread of the deadly coronavirus in Palestine.
Hours later, a spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) Sami Mshasha said that Israel has prevented his organization from providing health services related to the coronavirus for Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem.
Mshasha told Palestinian news agency WAFA that the Israeli measures are a “continuation of Israel’s two-year-old restrictions imposed on UNRWA activities in the occupied city, following the US recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and the embassy move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.”
Source: palestinechronicle.com
Other sources: Haaretz
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