Kia Ora Gaza

Gaza’s Ministry of Health announce that two travellers into Gaza have COVID-19

By Raed Shakshak, We Are Not Numbers, Gaza, 23 March 2020.

It was almost 1 a.m. when I read the news that Gaza had identified its first two coronavirus cases. My heart beat rapidly and fear flushed like ice water through my body. I continued to read but my eyes teared up and everything looked blurred, like a gauzy curtain had suddenly dropped down. I attempted to blink the tears out of my eyes and continue reading.

Those two people had returned to Gaza from Pakistan. And although all travelers have immediately been quarantined, no one here trusts that this has kept the infection contained. The virus is official in Gaza, where our hospitals are already short on vital medicine and equipment, people are crowded in like sardines (we have been banned from traveling for 14 years!)…