The idea of the coronavirus striking the battered and impoverished Gaza Strip and leaving a trail of destruction in its wake was once considered a nightmare scenario. Now, it is starting to look real. On March 26, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Gaza rose to nine, but authorities in Israel and the Gaza Strip are concerned that this is not the real number. The problem is that very few people have been tested, and even if testing takes place, the means available to protect oneself in Gaza are sparse at best.

One Israeli source involved in what has been happening in Gaza describes how the virus-carriers got infected. It all started about two weeks ago, when two Palestinians arrived in Gaza after spending time in Pakistan and Cairo. They arrived at the border crossing with Egypt by bus, together with many other Gazans, and when they crossed over into the Gaza Strip, they were told that they needed to be quarantined. They agreed, but asked for a chance to say hello to their families first. Five Hamas police officers went with them and watched as they hugged and embraced their family members without any protection whatsoever. The travelers were then taken to a quarantine facility. It has since been learned that the five police officers who accompanied them were found to have the coronavirus. What is not yet known is the status of everyone else they came into contact with over the last few days.

Regardless, the virus that causes COVID-19 is already in the Gaza Strip. The (rhetorical) question now being asked is whether the local health system will be able to cope with the challenge, when even wealthier and better equipped health-care systems around the world are having a hard time rising to the challenge. Physicians for Human Rights has been collecting statistics about the situation in Gaza on a daily basis. According to the most recent update on March 25, only 144 tests were conducted on a population of approximately 2 million, squeezed into a densely populated area with extremely poor conditions to maintain hygiene. The continued spread of the virus will definitely result in the collapse of the already impoverished health system in Gaza, where the total number of intensive care beds is just 70, and there are only 65 ventilators, some of them already in use.

On March 26, the Israeli office of the Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA) for Gaza announced that 1,000 test kits, protective equipment and disinfectant were provided to Gaza. When the equipment was delivered, the head of the CLA, Col. Iyad Sarhan, said, “This undertaking by the World Health Organization and other groups around the world fills an important niche in the need for health care in the Gaza Strip. The CLA for Gaza will continue to assist international organizations reduce the spread of the coronavirus in the Gaza Strip.”