Covid 19 and the Palestinian Territories - a discussion with Mustafa Barghouti, 26th March 2020

On the 26th of March, Forward Thinking convened a virtual workshop with Dr. Mustafa Bhargouti to explore the implications of Covid 19 for the West Bank and Gaza. Other participants included officials, former ministers and current parliamentarians from Britain, Sweden, Ireland, and UN agenciesMustafa Barghouti is the co-founder of the Palestinian National Initiative and currently serves as its General Secretary. He served as Minister of Information in the 2007 Palestinian unity government, and has been a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council since 2006. He is a medical doctor by training and the current chairman of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society.At the time of the meeting, there were approximately 100 confirmed COVID cases in the West Bank, 10 in Gaza and 4,831 cases in Israel. Until now, cases of COVID-19 in West Bank and Gaza have been predominately driven by people returning from more widely afflicted areas. However, new infection cases in the West Bank are increasingly driven by person-to-person contact, signalling that transmission of the virus will likely soon accelerate and threaten to overwhelm the already strained Palestinian Health system.The meeting highlighted the urgency of acting now before the virus can fully take hold. In particular there is a need to secure personal protective equipment, testing kits and ventilators, all of which are currently in short supply. A failure to prepare now, will guarantee a deeper and more damaging crisis later.Any effective responses will require extensive co-ordination at multiple layers  - between the international community, the Israel government, the Palestinian Authority, aid agencies and civil society. There have been some encouraging signs of this taking place at a technical level but these need to be deepened and intensified.Forward Thinking will continue to hold virtual workshops on the implications fo Covid 19 for Israel and Palestine in the coming weeks and will seek to support the coordination of humanitarian responses.