Another Palestinian clinic was shut down and several Palestinian activists were arrested by Israeli forces in the occupied East Jerusalem on Tuesday.
The Israeli raid was the latest action taken by the Israeli army to curtail Palestinian efforts aimed at containing the spread of the deadly coronavirus in Palestine.
The makeshift clinic was set up in a local mosque in the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan, which has suffered many such army raids in the past.
This isn't #Israeli apartheid, it is #genocide. Israel refuses to test Palestinians for COVID-19 and shuts testing sites down when they try to do it themselves. "Israel Shuts Coronavirus Testing Clinic in East Jerusalem and Arrests Organizers" https://t.co/WqfZa8BKE5
— IPMN of PCUSA (@IPMN) April 15, 2020
“There is a shortage of coronavirus tests in Silwan, where doctors say there are 40 confirmed cases and where overcrowded living conditions could lead to a rapid spread of the virus,” the clinic’s director told the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz.
According to the Israeli paper, the main reason behind the Israeli government action is to prevent “any Palestinian Authority activity in Jerusalem.”
A Palestinian coronavirus testing clinic in occupied East Jerusalem was shut by Israel.#IsraeliCrimes. pic.twitter.com/6ubB2ft93I
— SueGee
#BDS (@Thehopper7) April 15, 2020
Hours later, a spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) Sami Mshasha said that Israel has prevented his organization from providing health services related to the coronavirus for Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem.
Mshasha told Palestinian news agency WAFA that the Israeli measures are a “continuation of Israel’s two-year-old restrictions imposed on UNRWA activities in the occupied city, following the US recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and the embassy move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.”
(The Palestine Chronicle)
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