Shtayyeh: The Real Gap in our Fight against Coronavirus is Occupation and its Settlements. We don’t Accept the Israeli Custody over our Procedures.
Ramallah – Prime Minister’s Office: H.E. the Prime Minister, Dr. Mohammad Shtayyeh said: "The real gap in the Palestinian fight against the coronavirus outbreak is the occupation and its settlements, checkpoints and all of its procedures that try in every way possible to put down our efforts that we make to protect our people and stop the outbreak of the pandemic."
This statement came, today, Wednesday, after 15 Palestinians caught the coronavirus. Those Palestinians are workers in one of “Atarot” settlement’s factories, which is established on the lands to the north of Jerusalem.
The Prime Minister also added that: "If workers continue to move, with the facilitations provided by Israel, in and out of their cities, villages, work places inside the Green Line or in the settlements, will make our efforts, which we put in earlier to stop the spread of such disease, go in vain."
Moreover, Shtayyeh also said:"We consider letting our workers go to their work places as an attempt to protect the Israeli economy on the expense of the lives of the Palestinian workers. Yet, the economy of Israel is not more important than our people’s own lives."
The Prime Minister added: "Since day one, we have worked in high professionalism and adopted rapid procedures in order to stop the spread of the pandemic. On the first hand, we have fully succeeded in controlling the spread of the virus in Bethlehem. We have, also, managed to control this virus from spreading through all comers to Palestine throughout tied and close coordination with Jordan and Egypt by closing borders, taking swaps of the comers as well as putting them in quarantine. This, in return, helped in maintaining the slow pace of the spread and keeping the numbers of the coronavirus victims low."
Furthermore, Shtayyeh confirmed that we have managed to control the situation so far thanks to the harmony between the leadership decisions and decrees, in addition to the compliance of people and the devotion of the State of Palestine’s staff and employees.
The Prime Minister pointed out that there is a Palestinian – international coordination with all relevant parties in this regards, through the World Health Organization (WHO) which is following upon the progress of the situation on a daily basis, where WHO, in return, praised the preventive procedures that have been taken by the State of Palestine.
Shtayyeh denounced the Israeli talk regarding the Israeli medication annexation of the West Bank; saying that: "We don’t accept the Israeli custody on our procedures; thus, we demand Israel to leave us alone."