PA governmental spokesman accuses Israelis of attempting to deliberately spread Coronavirus among Palestinians

Headline: “Incessant attempts by the occupation to harm ‘the immunity wall’ that the [PA] government has established to defend our people”

“In a new attempt by the occupation to fight the steps of caution and prevention that the Palestinian [PA] government and all of its medical, security, and social bodies have instituted in order to defend our people from the spread of the Coronavirus, the occupation forces have taken a new step: They have opened the iron gates and checkpoints in the racist annexation and expansion wall in the northern West Bank, in order to smuggle a number of Palestinian laborers into the 1948 territories (i.e., Israel). This step has created confusion among the [Palestinian] security and medical teams that have been deployed at the various checkpoints and seam points in order to receive the Palestinian laborers returning from the 1948 territories. This was in response to the call of the [PA] government, which asked them to return to their homes and families after the Corona epidemic has increasingly spread among Israelis …

Since the beginning of the Palestinian campaign to fight the spread of the epidemic, [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas’ declaration of a state of emergency in Palestine, and the preventative steps taken by the Palestinian government following this in order to defend our people,the Israeli occupation has raised its ugly head in an attempt to thwart all of the Palestinian efforts, steps of prevention, and precautions… which had surpassed the slow and irresponsible steps taken by the occupation government…

In occupied Jerusalem the occupation forces have attempted to thwart the Palestinian efforts to disinfect a number of institutions, public facilities, and neighborhoods in the city. They have arrested a number of young Fatah Movement members who donated their modest capabilities to defend our people in the holy city from this epidemic, given the occupation’s neglect of the Palestinian neighborhoods (sic., refers to Palestinians arrested for illegal activity including graffiti)…

In Hebron, the occupation forces have prevented volunteers trained by the [PA] Ministry of Health… from carrying out a campaign to raise awareness and a disinfection operation in the old city and the closed areas next to the Ibrahimi Mosque (i.e., Cave of the Patriarchs) in order to protect against the Coronavirus. But the matter did not end with this; a few days ago dozens of occupation soldiers spit on cars of [Palestinian] residents and the door handles of the homes, which aroused panic among the citizens due to the concern that the soldiers were sick with the Coronavirus and attempting to transmit the disease to the citizens. A video was published on social media in which the soldiers were seen spitting everywhere in a number of Hebron’s neighborhoods, which caused the residents to clean the streets and disinfect them with chemicals (PMW found no such video of several soldiers, but only one short video showing one soldier apparently spitting near one car –Ed.)…

Settlers broke into the town of Hawara south of Nablus and walked around ATM machines and businesses in a suspicious manner. They exploited the fact that the residents remained in their homes after a state of emergency was declared in order to prevent the spread of the disease. This caused the residents to disinfect the places where the settlers had been.

Emergency committee spokesman in Hawara Awwad Najm told [the official PA news agency] WAFA that the settlers got out of their cars and attempted to break into businesses, and also passed their hands over the ATM machines of the banks in the town. Following this, the committee disinfected all of the sites out of concern that the settlers had sprayed suspicious materials that are liable to transmit the Coronavirus or contagious diseases…

Official [PA] Government Spokesman Ibrahim Melhem said: ‘It is not strange that the settlers and occupation soldiers are doing acts such as these, as they are striving for the epidemic’s spread in Palestine. In addition, they are attempting to approach our laborers and mingle with them in order to transfer the disease to them.’”