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 t