“So far, Palestinian authorities have said that 254 people have been infected by the virus in the West Bank and Gaza, including 24 who have recovered and one who died. Kamal al-Shakhra, the director-general of the primary care in the PA Health Ministry, told reporters Monday morning that only four people in the West Bank were in intensive care, but said their conditions were stable.”

“Several Palestinians who were caught trying to smuggle workers from Israel in their vehicles were arrested by the PA security forces in the past few days. Thousands of Palestinian workers are expected to return to their homes before the start of the Jewish Holiday of Passover. The PA fears that some of the workers may have contracted the disease during their stay in Israel. The PA Ministry of Health has instructed all the returning workers to remain in isolation in their homes for two weeks to prevent the spread of the disease. Palestinian health officials said that although many have abided by the instructions, others have returned to their homes without notifying the PA.”

“At such a critical moment, we call on Israel to lift the 13-year closure on Gaza so that inter alia Gaza can equip itself with the necessary medical supplies—both to combat COVID-19 and to care for patients who would usually seek to leave the Strip as their treatment is unavailable locally, notably cancer patients. Where medication and equipment are unavailable because of budgetary shortages of the Palestinian health system, Israel should help ensure the supply of the missing materials, to the greatest extent possible. Moreover, Israel should remove barriers to movement of goods and any other impediments on trade and economic activity that harm public health, as well as help to actively maintain a steady supply of electricity and fuel so that hospitals and the general population can maintain reasonable levels of hygiene.”

Signers: Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel; Al Haq – Law in the Service of Mankind; Al Mezan Center for Human Rights; B’Tselem – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories; EuroMed Rights; Gisha – Legal Center for Freedom of Movement; Human Rights Watch; Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights; MEDACT; Medecins du Monde France; Medical Aid for Palestinians; Medical Human Rights Network IFHHRO; Medico International; Medico International Switzerland; Oxfam; Physicians for Human Rights; Physicians for Human Rights Israel; The Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region (ASPHER); The World Organization against Torture (OMCT).

“Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar spoke directly to Gaza via Hamas’ television network April 2. Sinwar told residents about how Hamas is preparing for the war against the pandemic. Among other things he showed them how the keffiyeh, or headscarf worn by Muslim men, could help them protect themselves and their surroundings. He then spoke directly to Israeli Defense Minister Naftali Bennett, saying that Hamas doesn’t need any help but threatening, ‘If ventilators are not brought into [Gaza], we’ll take them by force from Israel and stop the breathing of six million Israelis.’”

“Palestinians in civil society organizations, political parties, and right of return committees must take UNRWA back from those who attempt to instrumentalize it as a mechanism for integration or resettlement. This means mobilizing refugees and UNRWA’s refugee-employees to better coordinate campaigns calling attention to the fact that the agency’s mandate is to provide refugees with humanitarian services until such a time as a just durable political solution has been reached that includes repatriation as an option.”

“The garment sector used to be one of the most prosperous in the Gaza Strip, but business significantly deteriorated after Israel imposed a blockade in 2007 and prevented clothing exports from Gaza. Nearly 90% of the 928 facilities, which had employed about 35,000 workers, had to close, said Abdel Naser Awwad, director general of the Department of Industry at the Ministry of National Economy in Gaza. Last year, Israel allowed Gaza to export limited quantities of clothing and textiles to the West Bank and Israel, in accordance with truce understandings between Hamas and Israel reached that March. As a result, about 6,000 workers regained their factory jobs. ‘The number of licensed factories operating [in Gaza] has currently reached 165,’ Awwad told Al-Monitor. These factories, which are advanced and can compete in global markets, immediately responded to the region’s PPE needs, he said.”

“…the EU must address the fundamental issue of Israel’s responsibilities as the occupying power in Gaza and the architect of a decades-long siege against the area’s Palestinian inhabitants. Europeans should press Israel to make financial contributions to Gaza and to allow all vital humanitarian aid into the area. These include materials for the construction and maintenance of water and sanitation projects, which are central to the fight against the coronavirus. In addition, Israel should increase the number of referrals of Gazan patients to hospitals in East Jerusalem and Israel, to reduce the burden on Gaza’s healthcare facilities.”

“The Knesset early Tuesday passed an amendment that will allow the country to increase its  budget and deficit in order to finance a NIS 90 billion ($25 billion) economic rescue package to help overcome the coronavirus crisis…Joint List MK Ahmad Tibi said that with so many missing MKs, the Likud found themselves short of a majority and begged his party for help, noting the irony that the ruling party had repeatedly sought to portray Joint List votes as illegitimate because they were not Zionist and accused some of the party members of supporting terror…Among the measures included were NIS 500 shekel ($150) stipends for children (up to a maximum of 4 per family,) NIS 950 shekel ($265) stipends for the elderly and increased unemployment benefits.”

“Israel’s largest nursing home chain, Misha’an, took out a newspaper advertisiement asking — or begging — the government to help.”

“Palestinian students in Israel are being disproportionately disadvantaged by the switch to remote online learning in light of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a Supreme Court petition filed on Sunday by the Palestinian human rights group Adalah and other NGOs. The petition, which cites figures from the Follow-Up Committee for Arab Education, notes that around half of Palestinian students in the country are unable to connect to online classes, while roughly a third do not have access to a computer or tablet. In unrecognized Bedouin villages in the Naqab/Negev, the situation is even worse.”

“Israelis will be required to wear face masks beginning Sunday under new Health Ministry directives approved by the government on Tuesday. The order came as the World Health Organization questioned the effectiveness of such a policy. Under the new rules, masks must be worn when leaving home. This does not apply to children under age 6; people with emotional, mental or medical conditions that would prevent them from wearing a mask; drivers in their cars; people alone in a building; and two workers who work regularly together, provided they maintain social distancing.”

“Nearly one-third of the approximately 9,000 coronavirus cases in Israel are in Jerusalem and Bnei Brak, with the vast majority of infections in the capital believed to be concentrated in its ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods, the Health Ministry said Tuesday.”

“Top health experts say that Israel’s climb out of its coronavirus lockdown, tentatively planned to begin after Passover, will be done very gradually and the process will take months at least. Schools and kindergartens, which have been closed for over a month, will likely be among the last places to reopen.”

“In the upcoming days, Israel-based artificial intelligence-based face recognition startup AnyVision Interactive Technologies Ltd. will deploy thermal cameras at the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center (Ichilov Hospital), the company’s chief operating officer Alex Zilberman told Calcalist. The cameras can measure body temperature from a distance and are capable of determining whether a high temperature is caused by disease or by another cause such as physical activity.”

“For the past two weeks, the Health Ministry has been routinely passing names of confirmed coronavirus patients to the Shin Bet. The agency then tracked the phones of the confirmed patients, trying to analyze who was in their proximity so as to alert them to immediately enter quarantine. The agency said its efforts led to self-isolation for more than 1,500 Israelis who were later confirmed to have the virus.”

“Israel has turned to NSO Group, a hacking company currently embroiled in multiple law suits: one filed by WhatsApp for helping authorities target human rights activists, and another by Saudi activist and friend of Jamal Khasshogi who charges that they were similarly targeted. It will reportedly now help the Defense Ministry rank everyone in Israel on a scale of 1-10 based on their movements and other data to assign their risk of transmitting the virus. Substitute the risk of transmitting Covid-19 with the risk they pose to ill-defined interpretations of ‘national security’, and it’s easy to see how these systems – deployed in what are already two of the most watched countries in the world – can be used after this crisis for political control.”

“Gantz and Netanyahu, until recently political rivals who faced off in Israel’s March 2 election, agreed that Netanyahu would be able to bring a proposal for annexing parts of the West Bank to a cabinet vote this summer, but only if the United States backs the move and if it is done in coordination with other international players.” See Also: “Intel: Netanyahu, Gantz strike West Bank annexation deal” (Al-Monitor) 

“Befitting Israel’s status as a start-up nation, it has outdone itself on new format, stretching political creativity beyond previously imagined limits. In addition to the innovations involving the premiership, the government will have 30 ministers at the outset and later increase to 34. This is to alleviate the pressure for portfolios that senior members of the Likud and the right are putting on Netanyahu. Thus, the next government will not only be the strangest and most complicated in Israel’s history, it will also be the biggest.”

“Two organizations with close ties to the Israeli government have teamed up on a federal lawsuit targeting the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), one of the leading Palestine advocacy groups in the United States. The civil lawsuit, which marks an escalation of the Israeli-led campaign against global Palestinian rights activism, was filed by the Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF, often referred to simply as JNF), the quasi-public body that owns 13 percent of state land in Israel and holds significant sway within Israeli land bodies. The International Legal Forum, an Israeli legal group that has received funding from the Israeli government, is advising the JNF on the case. Palestinian rights advocates say the lawsuit is the latest example of a strategy pursued by Israel and its allies to bog down Palestine activists in legal battles. A chief goal of this strategy, they say, is to divert the activists’ resources away from their advocacy to end Israel’s human rights abuses, while forcing them to address the stigma of being labeled as allies of terrorists.”

“It is clear, however, that the FBI conducted at least two major investigations into ISM. In addition to the international terrorism investigation into the two St. Louis activists, the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office initiated a domestic security investigation into ISM as an organization. Nothing in the documents suggests any of these investigations ever resulted in criminal charges. Instead, the documents reveal sprawling investigations involving FBI field offices in multiple states and the national headquarters, as well as local law enforcement. FBI agents resorted not only to confidential informants and physical surveillance, but a scandal-prone unit formed in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks accessed the phone records of at least one activist. In both investigations, the FBI relied heavily on biased right-wing publications making fantastical claims of questionable veracity.”