Amid Coronavirus Outbreak, Israeli Soldiers Dump Trash, Spit on Palestinian Cars in West Bank

Israeli soldiers in the West Bank. (Photo: File)

As Palestinians are trying to fight the spread of the deadly coronavirus pandemic, , Israeli soldiers today dumped trash and spat on doors of vehicles and homes in the southern West Bank town of Beit Ummar, according to Palestinian news agency WAFA.

Local activist Muhammad Awad told WAFA that a large group of Israeli soldiers broke into a section of Beit Ummar – located near the illegal settlement bloc of Gush Etzion – and threw glares contaminated with an unknown substance, as well as trash, needles and used gloves between village homes.

Israeli soldiers also spat on the doors of vehicles and homes, and insulted residents using racist terms, Awad said, raising concern that the soldiers intentionally want to spread coronavirus among the Palestinian civilians of that area.

After the soldiers had left the town, local volunteers of Beit Ummar Emergency Committee sterilized the two areas and destroyed and burnt all the materials that the soldiers had thrown.

On March 31, the Geneva-based Euro-Med Monitor urged the international community to protect Palestinians and force Israeli soldiers to stop incursions of cities and towns that threaten preventive measures taken by the Palestinian Authority to control the outbreak of coronavirus.

It also called for investigating the suspicious behavior of a number of soldiers and Jewish settlers, which appeared to be an attempt to spread the infection and hold those responsible to account.

Fifteen new coronavirus cases were confirmed this morning in the West Bank, raising the total in Palestine to 252, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

(Palestine Chronicle, WAFA, Social Media)

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