At nearly 18 per cent officially, and probably higher, the prevalence of diabetes among Palestinian refugees in the West Bank is one of the highest in the world. The official rate in Gaza is 16 per cent. Among adult citizens of Israel, it’s 7.2 per cent. The disease suppresses the immune system, among other complications, and can spiral dangerously out of control when combined with an infection, such as the coronavirus that causes Covid-19. Diabetic patients with Covid-19 in China had a 1 in 14 chance of dying, more than triple that of the general population.
Decades of living in overcrowded refugee camps and a rapid transition to cheap and readily available high calorie foods, in part a result of the neoliberal economic changes that came with the Oslo Accords, have led to an explosive increase in obesity and diabetes among Palestinians. As in other parts of the world, the prevalence of the disease is linked to land dispossession, structural violence, colonial domination and oppression. In the United States, diabetes is nearly twice as common in the Indigenous and African American populations as it is among non-Hispanic whites. Other examples from around the world confirm the connection between historical oppression and chronic diseases.
Israel’s military occupation, and a neocolonial aid regime with ever tightening donor restrictions, have contributed to a fragmented and underfunded health system that makes Palestinians more susceptible to a pandemic. With some of the highest population densities in the world, social distancing in refugee camps is nearly impossible. There are fewer than 120 ventilators in public hospitals for the 3.2 million people in the West Bank, and only 65 ICU beds for the two million in Gaza, of which 26 are available for Covid-19 patients. The toll of an outbreak would be catastrophic if it reached the scale currently seen in Europe and the US.
Despite the urgency of the situation, the response from accountable bodies has been anaemic at best and at worst openly hostile.
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