Hamas: Zionist Regime Responsible for COVID-19 Outbreak in Gaza

Date: 04 April 2020 - 00:01

News ID: ۷۷۲۴۶

GAZA STRIP (Dispatches) – The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has held the Zionist regime "fully responsible” for the consequences of any COVID-19 outbreak in the besieged Gaza Strip.
"The Israeli occupation, which has been imposing a blockade on Gaza for 13 years, will bear responsibility for the repercussions of any coronavirus spread in the Strip,” the Palestinian Information Center quoted Hamas spokesman Hazem Qasem as saying in a press conference.
Official figures by Palestine’s health ministry shows that as of Thursday, 160 people have tested positive for COVID-19 and one individual has died so far. Around a dozen of the infected people are in Gaza Strip, home to nearly two million people, and the rest are in the occupied West Bank.
The Hamas spokesman also said that the Zionist regime is committing a compounding crime through its persisting in besieging the enclave during the current pandemic, stressing that Hamas and all other resistance and national groups will continue their struggle to break the unjust blockade.
The majority of population of Gaza lives in tightly packed refugee camps, where social distancing is hardly feasible and the new coronavirus can rampage there if necessary safety measures are not taken.
Separately on Thursday, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor lambasted comments by Zionist war minister Naftali Bennett about sending anti-COVID19 aid to the Gaza Strip.
A day earlier, the Zionist minister had suggested that any future coronavirus assistance for the blockaded sliver be contingent on recovering the remains of two Zionist troops who died in 2014.
In a statement, the Euro-Med Monitor condemned Bennett’s linking of Gaza’s urgent humanitarian needs to any other issue as an "inhumane act,” calling for separating the humanitarian issues from any political calculations.
It also warned against using civilians as a means of pressure to achieve gains at the expense of their lives and safety.
Additionally on Thursday, the International Committee for Breaking the Siege of Gaza warned in a statement that the worsening humanitarian and health situation in the densely-populated enclave entailed urgent international intervention.
Zahir Birawi, the head of the UK-based committee, also called for urgent international action to break the siege on the Gaza Strip and provide it with medicine and necessary medical supplies.