Bi-Weekly Brief for April 5, 2021
Infection rate falls in Israel, declines slightly in the West Bank and rises steeply in Gaza
The number of daily Covid-19 cases in Israel reached a 9-month low by March 29, with 834,206 cumulative cases and 6,240 deaths registered by April 4. Thanks to strict closures there has been a daily reduction in new cases in the West Bank over the past two weeks. By April 4 there were 15,551 active cases in the West Bank (out of 208,323 confirmed cases) and 10,380 active cases in Gaza (68,807confirmed), with a total of 2,941 deaths (628 of them in Gaza). The spike in Gaza, where new cases have reached more than 800 per day, is particularly alarming given the overwhelmed hospitals, deaths among medical workers, the lack of oxygen, test kits and clean water, and the fact that Gaza’s 2 PCR machines can only process 3,000 tests a day.
Israel splurges on vaccine purchases while Palestine embarks on modest vaccination drive
According to Haaretz, Israel is secretly negotiating to purchase 30 million vaccine doses for $1 billion, in addition to the 25 million that are due to arrive in the next few months. It has already administered 10 million doses and is using 2 million more to vaccinate its entire population over 16 years of age and may start vaccinating 12-15 year olds later this month. It is not clear whether the millions of doses purchased from AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Moderna can be sold to third parties. Israel has so far shrugged off the petition filed on March 25 by 6 Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups demanding that it hand over surplus supplies to vaccinate Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. On March 29, 100,000 doses of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine arrived in the West Bank and 25,000 AstraZeneca purchased by the PA arrived the following day. Mondoweiss reports that Palestinians have now received 397,440 doses including those supplied by Covax. Of that number, some 98,000 have gone to the Gaza Strip, which began vaccinating on March 29. By April 1, 60,029 people in the West Bank had received their first dose as had 23,793 in Gaza, out of a total population of 5.2 million.
Israeli election brings far right into Knesset and gives Islamist party potential ‘kingmaker’ role
There was no clear winner in Israel’s March 23rd election and much confusion in its aftermath. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Likud party won 30 seats and together with its natural coalition allies still falls short of the 61 seat majority in the 120 seat Knesset needed to form the government. What is clear is that Israeli society has shifted further to the right, as the Religious Zionism list, including for the first time Kahanists like Itamar Ben-Gvir, won 6 seats with its message of anti-Arab racism, homophobia and misogyny. Its program includes legalizing all settler outposts, fighting the ‘LGBT agenda’, increasing the separation between men and women in the public sphere, and expelling ‘disloyal Arabs’ from Israel. Another ‘first’ is the newly influential position of Mansour Abbas and his Islamist Ra’am party, which broke off from the Joint List representing Palestinian Israelis and won 4 seats. Mansour Abbas – who is being courted by Netanyahu and by his opponents – has named as his key issues ending home demolitions within ’48, and combating crime in Palestinian Israeli towns. President Reuven Rivlin is consulting with party leaders to see who – if anyone – is in a position to form the next government.
Does Netanyahu have another way of evading his corruption trial?
Netanyahu may have failed in his hope of getting his corruption trial squelched by winning a clear election mandate. But Haaretz reports that he may have another way to achieve that goal: running for President after Rivlin’s 7-year term ends in July. According to Israel’s Basic Law, “The President of the state shall not be criminally prosecuted.” Meanwhile, the court has ruled that he must attend the opening of the evidentiary phase of his trial on April 5.
Road to Palestinian legislative election grows increasingly bumpy
In a challenge to President Abbas, Marwan Barghouti, who is serving 5 life sentences on ‘terrorism’ charges dating from the 2nd Intifada, has joined forces with Nasser al-Kidwa to form 1 of the 36 lists contesting the May 22 elections. Fearing that a splintered Fatah could lead to a Hamas legislative victory, Israel has been threatening and arresting potential Hamas candidates, including 3 Hamas leaders in Hebron on March 26. One Israeli official has said Israel will “stop everything” if Hamas wins. And fearing that his favored list of Fatah candidates might lose, Abbas has said there will be no election without voting in Jerusalem.
State Department reinstates aid and once-banished word ‘occupation’
After the Trump administration adopted the Israeli view that the Palestinian territories were ‘disputed,’ the word ‘occupation’ has made a somewhat confused reappearance in the State Department’s 2020 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. The US has also reinstated giving aid to the PA, with $15 million sent for Covid assistance, and $40 million for PA security forces and $75 million for economic aid reportedly in the pipeline. It has repealed sanctions on the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and her deputy while continuing, in Secretary of State Blinken’s words, “to disagree strongly with the ICC’s actions” relating to war crimes investigations in Afghanistan and Palestine. In an April 2nd phone call to Israel’s foreign minister, Blinken stressed the US commitment to Israel but “emphasized the administration’s belief that Israelis and Palestinians should enjoy equal measures of freedom, security, prosperity and democracy.”
What ‘freedom’ looks like after decades in Israeli prisons
The last two weeks have seen a depressing tally of arrests, injuries and raids, the suppression of anti-settlement and Land Day demonstrations, settler invasions of Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus and other archeological sites and their vicious beating of a Palestinian as soldiers fired stun grenades at his rescuers, F16 strikes against several sites in Gaza, and near daily attacks on Gaza’s fishermen and farmers. A dozen people were injured when the army on March 30 raided the tent erected at his house in an East Jerusalem neighborhood to welcome home Magd Abed al-Raheem Barbar after 20 years in prison. They also stormed the hall where he planned to eat lunch with friends the next day. He was re-arrested on the pretext that he had organized the gathering and raised a Palestinian flag, but then released by a court provided there would be no celebration. On April 1, a similar raid took place in East Jerusalem’s Silwan neighborhood where celebrations were taking place to welcome home Ghazi Kanaan after 11 years in prison. The army then arrested his brother. Some 4,400 Palestinians are currently in Israel’s prisons, 140 of them children and 440 administrative detainees, with 33 prisoners serving sentences of more than 25 years and 57 more than 20 years.
Water Fact
After 20 years of planning and repeated setbacks, a German-funded wastewater treatment plant built in Bureij in the Gaza Strip will be fully operational this month. It will treat wastewater from 11 communities that are home to 1 million people. A biogas plant and solar facility constructed on the site will enable it to avoid the frequent shutdowns caused by Gaza’s erratic electricity supply.
Compiled by The Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine
If you missed our World Water Day webinar, you can watch it here.
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