by Khaled Abu Toameh • March 16th
It is worth noting that Egypt, which has a shared border with the Gaza Strip, did not send any test kits or disinfectant materials to the Palestinians living there.
"After more than seventy years, Lebanon remains the country where Palestinian refugees suffer the most, where they are deprived of many of their economic and human rights, including working in certain professions, procedural complications in obtaining work permits, and denial of the right to own property." — Dr. Mohsen Saleh, Director-General of the Zaitouna Center for Studies in Beirut, arabi21.com, July 20, 2019.
Assad Abu Khalil, a Lebanese-American professor at California State University, who claims to be "pro-Palestinian," does not seem concerned about the severe restrictions imposed on Palestinians by his own country -- Lebanon. Nor does he seem bothered that a Lebanese (and not Israeli) official is the one who is actually calling for placing Palestinians in "mass prisons."
Egypt, for its part, long ago abandoned the Palestinians by essentially sealing its border with the Gaza Strip. The Lebanese, Egyptians and most Arabs perceive the Palestinians as Israel's problem. When the current virus crisis has passed, it is to be hoped that the Palestinians will remember that one country alone came to their rescue: Israel. They might also remember that their Arab brothers betrayed them -- not for the first time, and no doubt not for the last.
Palestinians in Lebanon are worried that the Lebanese authorities may use the coronavirus as an excuse to intensify restrictions even further on their refugee camps, after Samir Geagea, a prominent Lebanese politician, called for the immediate closure of the 12 Palestinian refugee camps in his country. Pictured: Palestinians in Ain el-Hilweh, Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee camp, protest on January 31, 2020. (Photo by Mahmoud Zayyat/AFP via Getty Images)
While Israel is working overtime with Palestinians to curb and prevent the spread of the coronavirus, the Arab states appear to be doing what they do best when it comes to helping their Palestinian brothers: nothing at all.
In the past few days, Israeli authorities delivered 200 coronavirus testing kits to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. In addition, Israeli and Palestinian professional teams have been working together to prevent the spread of the virus.
The Israeli authorities have also delivered another 200 coronavirus testing kits to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, despite the thousands of rockets and incendiary and bomb-carrying balloons that the ruling government, Hamas, has launched from there towards Israel.
by Majid Rafizadeh • March 16th
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) have taken charge of dealing with the coronavirus by cracking down on any individual or institution that attempts to reveal accurate information about the origins of the virus or how Iran has become an epicenter of the virus which spreads to other nations.
Massoud Pezeshkian, an Iranian reformist politician, pointed out: "We should have quarantined Qom from day one... This disease is not a joke, which is the way we are dealing with it... The economy and everything will be ruined; it is no joke. What would have happened if they shut down the country for 15 days? If we had done so on the first day, it would not have spread...."
The regime has also threatened to imprison people who provide news about the actual scope of the crisis. Hassan Nowrouzi, the Speaker of the Judiciary Committee of the Parliament, said on February 26 that those who "disseminate fake news regarding coronavirus" will be sentenced from one to three years of imprisonment and lashes.
Pictured: People line up to receive packages containing items for "precautions" against coronavirus, provided by the Basij volunteer paramilitary force, in Tehran on March 15, 2020. (Photo by Stringer/AFP via Getty Images)
The Iranian regime continues to decline taking appropriate measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus that is not only threatening the Iranian population but also people across the region.
During a meeting with Ireland's Prime Minister Leo Varadkar at the White House, President Donald J. Trump offered to help the Iranian authorities fight the coronavirus, but Iranian authorities rejected the offer as "hypocritical" and "repulsive". "We do not need American doctors," Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said.
Iran, in its interactions with China, has apparently become a global center for the virus. The head of one hospital in Tehran's Yaftabad said on March 1:
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