The Coronavirus outbreak poses a dilemma for tens of thousands of Palestinian laborers working inside Israel who are now barred from traveling back and forth. They can stay in Israel, where wages are much higher but the outbreak is more severe, or they can return home to quarantine and unemployment in the West Bank.
Authorities on both sides are wrestling with similar trade-offs as they confront a virus that blithely ignores the barriers erected over the course of the decades-old conflict.
Both Israel and the Palestinian Authority imposed sweeping lockdowns in mid-March, largely sealing off the occupied West Bank and heavily restricting travel within the territory. However, Israel and the Palestinian Authority initially agreed that the workers could remain in Israel for up to two months as long as they didn’t travel back and forth.
It was left to Israeli employers to provide living facilities for the workers, some of whom were largely left to fend for themselves. The Associated Press spoke to workers last month who left their construction site after several days of living in close quarters, with little if any protective equipment.
Many have chosen to go back to the West Bank, including thousands who returned ahead of the Passover holiday in Israel, when work grinds to a halt. Palestinian Labor Minister Nasri Abu Jaish told local media that 8,000 workers came back on Tuesday alone.
Their return to the West Bank poses a risk, both to public health and to the Palestinian economy.
Last week, Israel sent around 250 Palestinian workers back to the West Bank after a virus outbreak at a chicken slaughterhouse near Jerusalem, where nine workers tested positive.
The Palestinian Authority is stopping workers after they cross through Israeli checkpoints and taking their temperatures. Those with fever or other symptoms are taken to hospitals while the rest are ordered into 14-day home quarantine.
All workers are barred from returning to Israel, and security forces posted at the entrances to towns and villages are confiscating work permits.
Gerald Rockenschaub, the head of the World Health Organization for the Palestinian territories, praised the Palestinian Authority’s response to the pandemic. But he acknowledged that screening and quarantining the returning workers was “easier said than done,” especially since many are unregistered.
A major outbreak in the West Bank would overwhelm the local health system. West Bank hospitals have around 213 intensive care unit beds with ventilators, according to the WHO. That’s for a population of around 2.5 million.
The situation in Gaza, which has been under an Israeli and Egyptian blockade since the Palestinian militant group Hamas seized power there in 2007, is even more dire.
