Palestinian officials have expressed concern that the number of coronavirus cases among Palestinians could increase when tens of thousands of workers return to their homes from Israel with the start of Passover this week.
Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh said on Friday that the next two weeks will be critical in terms of controlling the spread of coronavirus as 45,000 Palestinian workers in Israel will return during Passover.
Shtayyeh said the workers will be required to enter into a 14-day quarantine upon their return to their homes in the West Bank. “It’s mandatory and not optional,” he cautioned.
Shtayyeh said the PA is “exerting efforts to arrange for the return of the workers with the Israeli side and to take the necessary health measures.”
He said that most of the new Palestinian confirmed cases within the last week are among workers in Israel, adding that 41 cases have been detected among 500 workers at a poultry plant in the Atarot Industrial Zone in northern Jerusalem.
“Israel should assume its responsibilities, as the occupying power, towards the Palestinian workers,” Shtayyeh said. The PA, he added, has a joint medical committee with Israel that is regularly monitoring the situation in light of the outbreak.
On Saturday, the PA announced that 16 more Palestinians have tested positive for the virus, raising the total number of infected patients to 210. Most of the new ones also worked at an Israeli poultry factory in Lod, said Dr. Kamal Sharkha. Director-General for Primary Health Care in the PA Ministry of Health.
Also Friday, PA President Mahmoud Abbas announced the extension of the state of emergency in the PA-controlled territories for another 30 days. The decision means that all educational institutions and all border crossings will remain closed and movement between Palestinian communities will remain suspended.
PA security officers and health officials have been deployed at the border crossings between the West Bank and Israel to collect the workers returning from Israel.
A PA security official expressed concern that many of the workers would try to return to their homes without passing through Palestinian security checkpoints. The official warned Palestinians against using their vehicles to smuggle the workers back to their homes.
In a related development, the PLO claimed on Saturday that settlements were spreading coronavirus to Palestinian villages and cities.
The claim was made by the PLO’s National Bureau for Defending Land in its weekly report, titled, “Settlements have become centers for transmitting coronavirus to Palestinian villages and cities in the West Bank.”
The report defended the PA government’s appeal to Palestinians to stop working in settlements.
“The epidemic of settlements has begun exporting its goods to the Palestinians through the Palestinian workers, who were left by the Israeli side without protection from the virus,” the PLO report charged. “Infected cases have appeared in villages and cities in the West Bank, and their sources were Israeli projects in the settlements, as was the case with the chicken factory in the settlement of Atarot in occupied Jerusalem.”