Coronavirus infections skyrocket in Gaza Strip

After much effort, the Gaza Health Ministry was recently able to increase the number of hospital beds dedicated to COVID-19 patients from 100 to 150. In the coming week, it hopes to add another 30 beds. But those exertions will likely be of little help if the coronavirus continues to spread at its current pace.

"There is no infrastructure to combat epidemics or crises in the Gaza Strip," said Iyad Abu Karsh of the Health Ministry. Unless the international community fails to step in and help, he said the pandemic could turn into a humanitarian catastrophe.

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Living conditions in the Gaza Strip contribute to the spread of the virus. At 360 square kilometers (roughly 140 square miles), the area is home to nearly 2 million people — a population density of more than 5,300 people per square kilometer. By comparison, Germany has an average population density of just 230 people per square kilometer.

'Every single person in my family is infected'

Housing is also in short supply. In January, just weeks before COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic, Deputy Housing Minister Naji Sarhan said the Gaza Strip was in need of at least 12,000 new apartments. This shortage has only contributed to the spread of the virus, with most people in the region living in extremely difficult circumstances.

"It's a disaster," Ahmed Alnajar told DW. The young man from Gaza became infected in late November and was admitted to the hospital with severe symptoms, before eventually recovering and being released.

"Every single person in my family is infected, our neighbors, too. There is hardly a street where someone isn't infected," said Alnajar, adding that crowded living conditions are seriously affecting the inhabitants.

"Not only are we suffering from the virus, but also from the psychological impact that the illness brings with it. And that is especially oppressive in such cramped quarters."

Mass unemployment

Many in the region are also facing an extremely precarious economic situation, with the unemployment rate recently hovering around 45%. The youth unemployment rate is higher still. Sami Al-Amsi, head of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions in Gaza, said the real number now exceeds 82% as a result of the pandemic, which has so far destroyed more than 160,000 jobs.

Roughly 13,000 people in Gaza earn their income working for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), making the agency the largest employer in Gaza. "People there are largely dependent upon international assistance," the agency's director, Philippe Lazzarini, told DW in a recent interview. But the UNRWA itself is massively underfunded, putting important services at risk.

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Ahmed Al-Bana, a 25-year-old carpenter who lost his job when the pandemic hit, now makes a living selling face masks in Gaza City. "I work here for a few hours every day," he told DW amid bustling pedestrians on Omar Mukhtar Street. "I have to pack it in around five in the afternoon. To me, hunger is more dangerous than the virus."

Al-Bana lives with his family, since he doesn't have a place of his own. "My father is ill. We don't get any help. That's why I go out and work despite the risks. But I follow safety rules and I also wear a mask," he said.

Dramatic spike in infections

Meanwhile, infection rates are skyrocketing, with more than 1,800 new cases being registered across the Palestinian territories — Gaza and the West Bank — each day. In all, more than 81,000 infections and 700 deaths have been registered here since the outbreak began.

On November 22, Abdelraouf Elmanama, a member of Gaza's government pandemic task force, said the situation would be entirely out of control by early December if infection rates continued at their current pace. "[At that point] the health system will become unable to absorb such a hike in cases and there might be cases that will not find a place at intensive care units," he said, adding that the current 0.5% mortality rate among COVID-19 patients could rise.

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Abdelnaser Soboh, an emergency health coordinator with the World Health Organization in Gaza, warned that by December 1, medical services for COVID-19 patients could collapse. Infection rates among those individuals being tested in the area currently hover around 21%, and increasingly, those infected are over the age of 60. "This is a dangerous indicator since most of [those over 60] may need to be hospitalized," Soboh said.

With Gaza in desperate need of immediate medical assistance, authorities like Fathi Abuwarda, an adviser to the Palestinian health minister, are pleading with the international community to provide medical equipment. If those pleas go unheeded, infection and death rates in the region will continue to climb.

This article has been translated from German by Jon Shelton.