Gaza City: Gaza reported its first cases of COVID-19 in the general population on Monday, as authorities confirmed four infections in a refugee camp and security forces declared a full lockdown for 48 hours.
The cases were from a single family in central Gaza, a government spokesman said, amid concern over the territory’s potentially disastrous combination of poverty, densely populated refugee camps and limited hospital capacity.
“A full curfew will be imposed starting tonight and in all of the Gaza Strip,” said Salama Marouf, chairman of the government’s media office.
As rumours spread, people raced to supermarkets to stock up on food and hygiene supplies. Police vehicles toured the streets using loudspeakers to urge Gazans to abide by the curfew.
The Health Ministry said the cases were uncovered after a woman travelled to the West Bank, where she tested positive. A ministry spokesman urged everyone who might have visited a supermarket outside a hospital in central Gaza to quarantine themselves and report to medics immediately.
Until Monday the coastal strip, home to 2 million Palestinians, had reported no infections outside quarantine centres.
Arrivals had to spend 21 days in the centres on orders from Hamas, the armed Islamist group that has controlled Gaza for more than a decade.
Read the article by Nidal al-Mughrabi in The Age.