April 20, 2021 at 9:01 am
Covid-19 cases in occupied Palestine, especially in the Gaza Strip, have reached record highs, largely due to the arrival of a greatly contagious coronavirus variant which was first identified in Britain. Gaza has always been vulnerable to the deadly pandemic. Under a hermetic Israeli-led blockade since 2006, the densely populated Gaza Strip lacks basic services like clean water, electricity and even minimally-equipped hospitals. As such, long before the coronavirus ravaged many parts of the world, Palestinians in Gaza were dying as a result of easily treatable diseases such as diarrhoea, salmonella and typhoid fever.
Needless to say, Gaza's cancer patients have little fighting chance, as the besieged Strip is left without a whole host of life-saving medications. Many Palestinian cancer patients continue to cling to the hope that Israel's military authorities will allow them access to the better equipped Palestinian hospitals in the West Bank. But that too is occupied and, alas, all too often death arrives before the long-awaited Israeli permit does.