Coronavirus Fear Adds to Gaza’s Already Poor Economy

By Staff, Agencies

It is bitterly hard times for Gazans, the residents of the strip already struggling under the inhuman Zionist siege, to add another suffering which is the spread of the new coronavirus pandemic.

The National Committee for Breaking the Siege has sounded the alarm over the economic hardships the people of Gaza Strip are going through.

Lawmaker Jamal al-Khudari, who is the chief of the organization, issued a statement on the matter, Turkey’s state Anadolu news agency reported on Monday. 

“The ‘Israeli’ occupation and siege as well as measures taken against COVID-19 have resulted in an economic crisis, and if it continues, it will create an unprecedented disaster,” the lawmaker said, adding, “The crisis is big and it is very dangerous for workers, factories and the trade, agriculture and tourism sectors.”

The COVID-19 disease, caused by the new coronavirus, was transmitted from wildlife to people in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year. It has affected 210 countries and territories across the globe. It has so far infected more than 1,867,130 people and killed over 115,280.

The World Health Organization [WHO] has already declared the outbreak a global pandemic.

Meanwhile, official figures by Palestine's Health Ministry shows that as of Monday, 290 people have tested positive for COVID-19 and two others have died so far in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

Under a tight ‘Israeli’-imposed land, air and sea blockade since 2007, Gaza suffers from a decline in the standards of living as well as unprecedented levels of unemployment and unrelenting poverty.

The impoverished enclave also struggles with the new coronavirus, which is raging across the globe. The Health Ministry in Gaza has already issued a distress call to the world as its central medical laboratory ran out of necessary supplies to process COVID-19 tests earlier this month.

The majority of population of Gaza lives in densely-populated refugee camps, where social distancing is hardly feasible and the contagious disease can rampage the besieged sliver if necessary safety measures are not taken immediately. Nearly two million Palestinians live in Gaza.

The ‘Israeli’ regime denies Gazans their basic rights, such as freedom of movement, jobs with proper wages as well as adequate healthcare and education.

Since 2008, the Zionist regime waged three wars against Gaza and thousands of Gazans have been martyred during these wars.