The Economist - USA (2020-03-28)

44 Middle East & Africa The EconomistMarch 28th 2020

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s bordersclose, businessesshut and

muchof theworld adjuststo being

lockeddown,residentsofGazacan only

lookonwithgrimamusement.Isolation is

nothingnewfortheterritory’s2mPalestin-

ians.Theyhavebeenunderblockade since

2007, when Hamas, a militant group,

seizedpowerafterwinninga majority in

legislativeelections.IsraelandEgypt have

largelycutoffthemovementofgoods and

peopleinandoutofGaza.

Itisnotatotallockdown:Gazans are

freeto moveabouttheir sliverof land,

whichmeasures 365 squarekilometres (140

squaremiles).Butfewcanventureany far-

ther.Lastyear,onaverage,just 740 people

wereabletoleaveGazaeachday.

“Fourteendaysofisolation?Welcome

toourlast 14 years,”goesonejokemaking

theroundsonmessagingapps.Anunem-

ployed graduate, desperate to emigrate,

quipsthathisPalestinianpassportis at last

worththesameasa Europeanone.Another

laughsatvideosofWesternerspanic-buy-

ingthewronggoods—perishablefood, in-

comprehensibleamountsof toilet roll—

andjokesaboutstartinganonlinecourse

toteachproperstockpiling.

AsthevirussweptthroughIsrael and

theoccupiedWestBank,though,the re-

strictionsturnedGazaintoa reverse cordon

sanitaire. Residentswondered,with a sort

ofbitter optimism,whethertheir plight

wouldsparethemfromacrisisthat has

paralysedmuchoftheworld.

No longer.On March 21stthehealth

ministry announced the territory’s first

two cases of covid-19. The patients had re-

turned two days earlier from Pakistan, via

the Rafah crossing with Egypt. Days later

another seven cases were confirmed, all

members of the security forces who had

met the returnees. Officials said all the pa-

tients were isolated. Still, they took no

chances. Restaurants and cafés have been

closed and Friday prayers cancelled.

An outbreak would be catastrophic.

Gaza is one of the world’s most densely

populated places. The health-care system,

shattered by the long blockade, would be

unable to cope. Even in normal times, basic

items like antibiotics are often in short

supply. The territory has just 62 ventilators,

or three for every 100,000 people. At least a

quarter of them are already in use. Beds in

intensive-care wards are similarly scarce.

So are doctors, because scores of them have

emigrated recently.

The virus has begun to pop up in other

ravaged corners of the Middle East as well.

For weeks Syria insisted that it had been

spared the scourge of covid-19. Few Syrians

believed this, given the number of people

travelling back and forth to Iran, home to

one of the world’s worst outbreaks. But on

March 22nd the government logged the

country’s first official case. It stopped pub-

lic transport and imposed a curfew. Worse

still would be an epidemic in Idlib, the last

big rebel-held pocket, where 3m people live

in dire conditions. Libya announced its

first case of covid-19 on March 24th.

These countries may never know the

full extent of their outbreaks. Doctors in

Gaza say they received only about 200 kits

to test for the virus. Most have already been

used. They are pleading with Israel and the

whoto send more, but it is unclear when,

or if, they will. More than 1,400 people,

many of them recently returned from

abroad, have been crammed into schools

turned makeshift isolation centres, sleep-

ing six or eight to a classroom—a quaran-

tine within an open-air jail. 7

BEIRUT

TheresidentsofGazarespondwith

darkhumour

Covid-19reachesGaza

Quarantinewhile

undersiege

Stealing a peek at the pandemic

Abdelmadjid Tebboune, Algeria’s presid-

ent. Jordan limited the number of journal-

ists allowed to report outside, even before

it recorded any deaths from the virus. Egypt

banned a correspondent from theGuard-

ian, a British newspaper, after she cited Ca-

nadian epidemiologists who think the out-

break in Egypt is worse than the

government says. Arabs increasingly rely

on state broadcasters, which deliver slant-

ed news and questionable data alongside

public-health announcements.

Even in the region’s freest country, Isra-

el, there is concern that the government is

overstepping. Binyamin Netanyahu, the

prime minister, has ordered his spooks to

use phone surveillance technology to track

Israeli citizens in an effort to curb the

spread of the virus. Some Israelis worry

that this power will be abused. Mr Netanya-

hu and his allies are also accused of using

the outbreak to delay his trial on corrup-

tion charges and keep him in office, as ne-

gotiations over a new government contin-

ue. “He is doing his utmost to exploit the

opportunity the coronavirus introduced,”

says Yohanan Plesner of the Israel Democ-

racy Institute, a think-tank.

Elsewhere, though, draconian meas-

ures have been greeted with praise. As the

virus spread, the hashtag “declare a state of

emergency” trended on Twitter in the re-

gion. According to Ipsos, a pollster, 98% of

Jordanians think their government is do-

ing a “good” or “very good” job. They are

seemingly happy with a new law that al-

lows the king to seize private property, de-

tain anyone who threatens public order

and screen all media before publication.

Even anti-government activists are sound-

ing supportive. “Sometimes human rights

and public-health needs clash,” says one in

Morocco, which is under lockdown.

Social distancing has meant that the

large anti-government protests rocking

countries such as Algeria, Lebanon and

Iraq have fizzled away for now. Opponents

in the region are getting along better, too.

Israel and the Palestinians are co-operat-

ing, to an extent, in the face of a common

enemy. The United Arab Emirates and Ku-

wait have offered aid to Iran.

The calm may not last, though. The pan-

demic has hit the region’s economic main-

stays, such as tourism and remittances,

while a collapse in the price of oil has cut

into government revenues, putting public-

sector jobs at risk. Meanwhile, the whois

casting doubt on the outbreak data coming

from governments in the region. Insuffi-

cient testing means the number of infected

people is undoubtedly higher than the offi-

cial tallies. Most health systems are not

equipped to deal with a large outbreak. As

more people fall ill, the region’s authoritar-

ians may regret having long spent more on

their armies and security services than on

hospitals and medical supplies. 7