“Ravia-Zadok emphasized that the Palestinian Authority is responsible for fighting the virus both in the West Bank and Gaza and that the Palestinians would surely need more equipment and help than Israel is able to provide. For Israel’s senior diplomats, the meeting was an occasion to call upon the international community not to forget the Palestinians in the crisis and not to lay the entire responsibility on Israel’s shoulders. A senior Foreign Ministry official told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, ‘We really have here an opportunity to show that Israelis do seek peace and to express our solidarity with our neighbors, who surely won’t be able to confront this crisis on their own. Still, with Israel itself battling to get more masks and more ventilators, we would need the international community to work with us so we can also help the PA.’ In their phone call, Rivlin told Abbas, ‘The whole world is dealing with a crisis that does not distinguish between who people are or where they live. Our cooperation is needed to ensure the safety of both Israelis and Palestinians.'”

“Israeli police are cracking down on ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods around the country, which have emerged as coronavirus hot spots as residents continue to ignore stay-at-home orders and bans on gatherings meant to stem the epidemic. Authorities have carried out raids on synagogues and deployed helicopters, which hover over streets filled with black-clad religious students, after these crowded, insular communities recorded some of Israel’s highest rates of infection. As police have pushed into some of these neighborhoods, violence has broken out. Young ultra-Orthodox men threw rocks at police in Jerusalem’s Mea Shearim neighborhood Monday after officers broke up a gathering at a synagogue and cited residents for straying more than 100 meters from their homes. Thirty residents were fined up to $1,400 for violating health restrictions, and the army sent patrols into the neighborhood Tuesday. Officials are now considering locking down entire ultra-Orthodox areas.” See Also: “Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jews Face Coronavirus Devastation. They Need Face Masks” (Haaretz)

“The Health Ministry is to provide the Interior Ministry with information about the individuals, who have been diagnosed with the virus or have been exposed to a carrier, so that social workers from local governments can make home visits and decide whether the homes meet quarantine requirements. If it is decided that the requirements cannot be met at home, for example where there are large number of children and a single bathroom, the individual will be asked to move to motel-type lodgings provided by the Interior Ministry.”

“Two mobile coronavirus testing clinics were set to open Wednesday in the coastal city of Ashdod and in the Bedouin city of Rahat in the Negev Desert, the Magen David Adom (MDA) ambulance service said. Additionally, Hebrew-language media reported that MDA would open a mobile clinic Wednesday in East Jerusalem, where people will be tested for the first time.”

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday ordered the Health Ministry to enforce regulations mandating that new arrivals to Israel be taken into quarantine, after reports emerged that hundreds of people have been entering the country from areas hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic without being tested for the virus upon arrival and without being sent to isolation hotels. Netanyahu gave the order to Health Ministry Director General Moshe Bar-Siman Tov, Channel 12 reported after broadcasting an investigative report earlier Tuesday into the failures to quarantine or even check arrivals from the US, Italy, Spain and France.”

“A Knesset committee on Tuesday approved the collection of personal data on citizens by domestic spy agencies, a controversial measure enacted by the government earlier this month for the purpose of battling the coronavirus pandemic. Earlier in March, the government authorized the Shin Bet security agency to collect information from private cell phones to facilitate Israel’s response to the new coronavirus, which has infected over 5,300 people in the country. It also authorized police to use similar data to enforce quarantine orders.”

“Contact tracing — as vitally important as it is — has a huge impact on people’s lives, as does the presumption of illness…The use of mobile phone network data, for example, creates very granular, real-time targeting opportunities, which is dangerous for a number of reasons — as an illustration, in Israel, the government has said it will use location data to impose quarantine as a ‘requirement’ that the government will enforce ‘without compromise.’ Similarly, communities largely don’t have the awareness or tools to appropriately manage a response and can often give way to fear and discrimination. Problematically, broad public awareness ultimately doesn’t fix the primary determinant of COVID-19 mortality, which is health system capacity. And, of course, at a higher level, normalizing government-enforced, digitally delivered controls on our individual and collective rights creates the machinery for redeployment in future contexts, which may or may not be at this scale of emergency.”

“The extent of the invasion of privacy, and employing the army for collecting information are not compatible with a democratic society. Besides the fact that tracking civilians enables the government to blur a decades-long neglect of the health system, which may not withstand an onslaught of corona patients, Israel’s citizens have in recent weeks been unwillingly participating in an experiment in which they are tracked and subjected to an analysis of their sensitive private information. Corona is providing further legitimization for tightening this tracking.”

“In an exposé broadcast Tuesday by Channel 12’s ‘Uvda’ investigative news program, the head of the technology department in Israel’s Mossad intelligence service said countries have been locked in a fierce, covert battle to take control of a limited supply of ventilators at all costs…’The world is selling [ventilators] through cracks. We need to find the cracks,’ said Het. ‘We are world champions in operations, and we know how to manage complex operations. We are utilizing our special connections to win the race and perhaps do what the whole world is doing — lay our hands on stocks ordered by others,’ he said.”

“Armed security forces from the Palestinian Authority conducted a rare operation in a Jerusalem neighborhood that is within the Israeli municipal boundaries of Jerusalem, but on the West Bank side of the separation wall. Palestinian sources say Israel was notified of the operation in advance. Palestinian security forces openly entered Kafr Aqab to calm the situation there, following a gun battle among Palestinians over a roadblock set up to enforce the lockdown the Palestinian Authority has imposed to stop the spread of the coronavirus in the territory under its jurisdiction…Meanwhile, the nonprofit organization Ir Amim sent a letter to Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Leon this morning, in which they detailed the urgent issues in Kafr Aqab. Oshrat Maimon, director of policy advocacy at the organization, warned that the food baskets the city has been providing to residents only arrived to 300 families, while there are 800 families in need. He also said that the state of sanitation in the neighborhood has deteriorated after the city furloughed sanitation workers at the same time that household trash production has increased due to home isolation. Maimon added that residents are suffering from serious issues with their water supply and that volunteers are lacking protective gear and disinfectant. ‘The organization of residents in Kafr Aqab has been working over the past few weeks to answer these different needs. However, it is clear that this does not relieve the municipality and the Israeli authorities of their obligation to work to provide services and answer the basic existential needs of East Jerusalem in general and these neighborhoods in particular,’ Maimon wrote to Leon.” See Also: “PA policemen enter east Jerusalem village to halt armed clashes” (Jerusalem Post)

“The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees began home deliveries for the first time so residents would not need to go to the crowded distribution centre where they would normally pick up supplies. The agency supplies essentials such as flour, rice, oil and canned foods to about half of the territory’s 2 million people. About 4,000 deliveries were made on Tuesday, with an estimated 70,000 more to be made over the next three weeks, said Adnan Abu Hasna, the agency’s spokesman in Gaza.”

“The Balata camp committees submitted demands to UNRWA, including extending contracts of contractual cleaners, providing tools and supplies needed to disinfect the camps and extending work hours in clinics that serve refugees in camps and surrounding villages. Zawkan added, ‘Ever since the state of emergency was announced, we contacted UNRWA and called for boosting the [capacities] of camps. They promised us to take some measures, but there was a 20-day delay.’ To deal with this slow response, internal committees were formed in each side of the camp to carry out cleaning operations, raise awareness among the inhabitants and coordinate with municipalities to empty garbage bins. The responsiveness of the Refugee Affairs Department of the PLO was helpful, as it expedited budget spending for service committees to move swiftly.”

“Palestinian Authority government spokesman Ibrahim Milhem announced on Wednesday that 15 Palestinians from the West Bank, who work at a poultry plant in the Atarot Industrial Zone in East Jerusalem, tested positive for coronavirus. Milhem said seven of the 15 newly confirmed cases had traveled from the factory to their homes in the central West Bank and were close to other people before Palestinian health officials tested them for COVID-19.”

“Two more people in the Gaza Strip were confirmed Tuesday to have the novel coronavirus, bringing the number of cases in the Palestinian enclave to 12. Their condition was ‘stable and reassuring,’ the Hamas-run health ministry said. Both were in quarantine after having returned recently from Egypt, according to the ministry.”

“PEX, hosting 48 listed companies with a total market capitalization of $3.8 billion, saw its index drop by $200 million before it closed, but Nabulsi said this is acceptable during a global crisis. The closing was an attempt to freeze the impact of the crisis and buy time to come up with solutions. PEX management has maintained some internal work. It continued to hold scheduled meetings in March to ensure the distribution of profits and pump liquidity to shareholders and the market in light of the crisis. Nabulsi explained that the current PEX status will prevent major shareholders from stockpiling and monopolizing shares at low prices. Regarding the duration of this trading halt, Nabulsi said that when banks return to work at their full operational capacity, the stock exchange will be able to resume trading even if the general state of emergency continues in Palestine.”

“This moment of crisis has inspired cooperation and solidarity among Palestinian citizens, who make up 20 percent of the population. Political activists as well as private citizens are enlisting to fight the virus and its impact on society — from donation drives, to online therapy sessions, to virtual skill-sharing classes. Given the poor infrastructure in Arab cities and towns, the High Follow-Up Committee, an umbrella organization that represents the country’s Palestinian citizens, established a national health committee, enlisting top-quality doctors and medical experts to publish essential information. ‘The situation in Arab locales is one big disaster when it comes to emergencies,” says Mohammad Barakeh, the head of the High Follow-Up Committee. “Medical services in Arab villages are even worse than in third world countries.'”

“Emergency directives issued by the Israeli authorities, which bar freedom of movement and other activities under the pretext of the coronavirus, are making it harder to monitor, document, and defend against Israel’s violations of Palestinian human rights in multiple areas of life, say Palestinian and Israeli rights groups. ‘We are still monitoring cases, but our researchers are unable to be fully present and document the area,’ said Rania Muhareb, legal researcher and advocacy officer at Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights organization based in Ramallah. ‘It is very difficult to say if there are more or less incidents for the simple reason that, in this situation, it is harder to get all the information at the same speed we usually do.’”

“’For me, work is life. So when work stops, life stops,”’Hamdan, who usually earns NIS 3,000-4,000 ($850-$1,100) per month, said. “’ know that the virus is dangerous and I understand why these restrictions have been enacted, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to afford groceries at the supermarket next week.’…Israel has barred the vast majority of Palestinians from crossing into its territory, but agreed to permit some 75,000 Palestinian workers in ‘essential sectors’ to do so nearly two weeks ago, on the condition that they spend one to two months in the country. Only 35,000-45,000 took up the offer…Even though many Palestinians have worked in Israel for decades, Israel’s National Insurance Institute does not offer them unemployment benefits…Jafar Sadaka, an expert on the Palestinian economy, said that the PA, which has pledged to assemble an NIS 20 million ($5.5 million) fund to support workers affected by the crisis, would not be able to provide significant compensation to Palestinians who labor in Israel. ‘The workers in Israel and the settlements usually bring NIS 1-1.2 billion ($280-$340 million) shekels into our economy every month. NIS 20 million won’t make up for that,’ he said. ‘The Authority also is going to be taking in significantly less taxes next month and probably will find it very difficult to provide further aid.’”

“Amid the crisis, two Palestinian young men based in the northern town of Beit Lahia have started restoring an old factory to produce protective suits as part of their efforts to help prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus. Hassan Olwan, who is in his 30s, felt that he should show responsibility toward his people, especially in light of the lack of health supplies and equipment in the blockaded coastal enclave. He said he and his partner came up with the idea after they contacted Chinese friends to import protective suits. They failed in that effort due to the state of emergency in several countries and travel restrictions around the world, specifically in China, the first epicenter of the virus. ‘So I asked my friends in China to send me the production standards to manufacture the suits here,’ Olwan told Al-Monitor, adding that he was encouraged by his friends to do good for his country.”

“Chairing his first full Knesset session as speaker Monday, Blue and White leader Benny Gantz confronted intense criticism from his former allies in the center-left bloc for having abandoned them to enter into unity talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu….Gantz made little comment during the proceedings, only expressing hope at the end that the discourse would continue to be civil, even when disagreements arise.”

“For many progressive Israelis, especially Arab citizens, Gantz’s decision was motivated by something more basic than exhaustion: bigotry. Gantz had only one way to form a government without Netanyahu and the right-wing and religious parties loyal to him. But it required the support of the Joint List, a coalition of four parties which represent most of Israel’s Palestinian citizens. In the end, that was something Gantz couldn’t stomach.”