An Israeli airstrike has been said to have damaged the Gaza Strip's only facility for processing Covid-19 tests. It has been reported that, at present, the processing laboratory is completely inoperable, meaning that Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip can no longer be properly tested for the deadly disease.
It is believed that the target of the airstrike was a building the Israelis claim is connected to the Hamas militant group, however, the blast and debris hit the laboratory. The laboratory is also involved in other medical practices, such as testing for HIV and Hepatitis.
Dr. Majdi Dhair, director of the ministry's preventive medicine department, said:
"This attack was barbaric. There's no way to justify it."
Israel has claimed that it is only targeting those individuals and buildings connected to Hamas, however, in the last 10 days, over 200 civilians have been killed, including over 100 women and children, including some as young as 2-years-old.
While Israel is a world leader in terms of vaccine roll-out, with over 55% of its population now vaccinated, only 2% of the 2 million Palestinians living in the cramped 360 square kilometres of the Gaza Strip have received any vaccination.
The bombing campaign also means that any future vaccinations in the Gaza strip have now been suspended, creating the possibility that many could die of Covid-19 as a result of the bombing.
It is worried that, as Palestinians huddle in bomb shelters, are made homeless from bombings, or attend hospitals, Covid-19 will spread exponentially through their community.
Matthias Schmale, the U.N. agency's director of operations, has said that because many Palestinians are gathering in UN-funded schools to avoid being hit, that these schools could become mass-spreader events.
Palestinians across Israel and the West Bank took part this week in a huge general strike in opposition to Israel's continued bombing. The hope is that this will pile pressure on the Israelis to stop their military campaign. The general strike has taken place across Israel and the West Bank even though the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank, known as 'Fatah', is fiercely opposed to the Islamic fundamentalist 'Hamas' who control the Gaza Strip.
[h/t: The New York Times]
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