Israeli aid to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip during the COVID-19 pandemic

The claims asserted in David Mills and colleagues in their Correspondence¹ were so egregious that we feel the need to respond, even though some time has passed since its publication and the Correspondence has since been removed from The Lancet's website.

Mills and colleagues have used the COVID-19 pandemic as a barely disguised platform for their continued political rhetoric. Referring to “a crippling blockade”¹ without mentioning that such blockade was not an arbitrary attempt to increase suffering to the local population, but rather a necessary response to arms smuggling and non-ceasing violence against Israel ever since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip, stating that the Palestinians should be granted “their legal and moral right of return”,¹ and asserting that the COVID-19 pandemic “should not be viewed as an inevitable biomedical phenomenon…but as a preventable biosocial injustice rooted in decades of Israeli oppression”¹ are all political commentary that overshadows any actual concern for public health the authors might have intended.

To put matters into better perspective: since the outbreak of COVID-19, Israel has continuously transferred critical medical equipment to the West Bank and Gaza Strip. A statement from the UN Secretary General in late March, 2020, noted that “Israeli and Palestinian authorities continue to coordinate their responses closely and constructively, a major factor in the containment achieved so far. Israel has also facilitated the entry of critical supplies and equipment into Gaza since the beginning of the crisis…This is in addition to Israel's cooperation to allow for the movement and access of personnel involved in the COVID-19 response to and from both the West Bank and Gaza.”²

In addition, despite continued rocket fire from Gaza by terrorists with no concern for the innocent people living among them, Palestinian patients continue to enter Israel to receive life-saving medical treatment.