Low Population Reporting, Rescuing Residents from Tests and Poor Health Care Activity • Israel Has Only Closed the Temple Mount Only After Jordan Intervenes

• Prayers on the Temple Mount last month

  Photo:

  Reuters

"East Jerusalem is the 'Bnei Brak' of the Arab sector," a security official says, "a 'black hole' of lack of information, treatment and monitoring of the Corona epidemic." Medical officials in the capital are expressing concern that within days to weeks, the epidemic will erupt in the eastern city of its 350,000 inhabitants, with only 21 Corona patients to date found.

This low number, it is hypothesized, does not reflect a low infection rate or immunity of the Arab population in East Jerusalem to the virus, but a very low rate of reporting by the population on concern for Corona, a severe reluctance of East Jerusalem residents to carry out virus detection tests, and a low level of office activity. Health and Israeli medical entities in the eastern part of the city. MDA, for example, is very limited in security at the entrance to some of East Jerusalem's neighborhoods, especially those beyond the separation fence, where a third of the residents live, some 140,000.

In these neighborhoods, the situation is particularly dangerous: In the refugee camps, Shuafat and Kfar Aqab, which, even during normal days, constitute a kind of no-man's land, and suffer from a governmental Israeli vacuum and neglect in infrastructure and services, the population finds itself falling between chairs, even in the Corona crisis.

Formally, the two neighborhoods marked in the Century Plan as neighborhoods to be handed over to the Palestinian Authority are still within Israeli sovereignty. In practice, however, in these areas there is almost no enforcement of the Corona: there are no tests to identify the disease in residents; There is no resident report of the disease and no closure is enforced in the same way as it is done in Jewish neighborhoods. Even in the few cases where residents are prepared to go into solitary confinement due to concern for Corona, it is not possible to do so because of the high population density, especially in the Shuafat refugee camp.

This reality is often reminiscent of the reality in some of the ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods of Jerusalem and Bnei Brak: a high number of souls living in small, cramped apartments. To this should be added the low willingness of the residents in the neighborhoods beyond the fence to carry out tests, fearing that they will be positive for the virus and removed from their families.

Not for work in the settlements

The Palestinian Authority, which in its routine would have used the Israeli government vacuum to try to enhance its own sovereign and governmental appearance in these neighborhoods, is in no hurry to do so this time. Moreover, Fatah leaflets circulated on social networks explained to the population that the days are not ordinary days, and that there is no escape from the conduct that contradicts the national interest. Against this background can be understood the extraordinary conduct of the PA and Fatah.

These have asked Israel to increase the surveillance and treatment of the Corona epidemic in neighborhoods beyond the fence, as mentioned in the Israeli Jerusalem area, and even to put up checkpoints, and to prevent residents from moving there to the areas of the PA. , For fear that they will be infected with the virus.

Israel, for its part, limits, and even considers banning, residents from the neighborhoods beyond the fence, to the areas of East Jerusalem within the fence, and to the Jewish neighborhoods in the capital. Here, too, the concern is for massive infection. Thus, 140,000 residents of sovereign Jerusalem find themselves without an address in the Corona's affairs, barred from the west and the east by a kind of enclave that no one is ready to handle. This reality has given rise to two phenomena: one, local organizing of committees and Fatah members trying to keep residents in their homes, and limiting and reducing the public presence in public spaces, including business closures.

The second is reminiscent of what happened 15 years ago when Israel built the separation fence. Then tens of thousands of East Jerusalem residents moved outside the fence to the East Jerusalem area inside the fence, fearing they would lose a line of rights derived from the resident status they hold.

Now thousands of residents from the neighborhoods beyond the fence, with their children, are relocating to East Jerusalem neighborhoods inside the fence, often to their older parents' homes. In doing so, they risk their parents, who are known to be at a more pronounced risk group for contracting the virus.

"Deal" on the mosque

Another point of interest in East Jerusalem is the Holy Places of the Three Religions. While the Western Wall and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher allowed only time for a few worshipers, the Temple Mount required Israel to use a variety of means, diplomatic and other, to enforce the closure of mosques and the mountain for the Waqf and the Muslim public.

The beginning was difficult. The Waqf and the Muslim public refused to comply with the police calls and refrain from going to al-Aqsa. Thousands crowded into the mosque and the Dome of the Rock, endangering themselves and the population they subsequently came into contact with, ignoring the Ministry of Health and State guidelines. The Muslim conduct was reminiscent of the Waqf's conduct during another crisis, in the early 2000s, when the stability of the eastern wall of the Temple Mount was undermined. This then jeopardized the stability of the entire complex, and the peace of the Muslim worshipers in the underground mosque in Solomon's Stables, in the southeast corner of the mountain. The Waqf then refused to vacate the underground mosque to allow the wall's restoration work. Only Jordanian pressure convinced the Waqf of the urgency of the move.

This time too, the Waqf's initial behavior was defiant. As police began to close the mountain gates, the Waqf people reopened them. When the police closed the al-Aqsa gates, the Muslims flocked to the new mosque they had trained at the Gate of Mercy. Unfortunately, Israel has turned to its quiet partner in managing the Temple Mount - Jordan.

At the end of a series of talks with members of the royal house and Jordanian ministry, the direction of the action became apparent. The Jordanians have stated their willingness to act by preventing Israel from visiting Jews on the mountain, even a few. The Jordanians explained that it would make it easier for them to persuade the East Jerusalem public to comply with the Waqf guidelines. This led to the decision of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who agreed to the deal. The Temple Mount was closed to both Muslims and Jews. With the exception of a handful of Waqf workers who perform a limited prayer daily, there is hardly any going out and no coming from the mountain.

When its gates are reopened, to a limited format of prayers, Israel will again have to balance the number of Muslim worshipers and the number of Jewish visitors who are more likely to enter the mountain. One of the factors that need to be addressed is the members of the Northern faction of the Islamic Movement.

The faction's deputy chief Sheikh Kamal Khatib has already warned the Israeli conspiracy to "conquer al-Aqsa under the auspices of the Corona." As is well known, the faction has been outlawed, but its activists in East Jerusalem continue to stir the spirits.