Qatar will provide $150 million to support the Gaza Strip in its fight against the coronavirus pandemic, Reuters reported Sunday, citing state news agency QNA.
QNA said this package aims at "alleviating the suffering of the Palestinian people, and in support of UN relief and humanitarian programs in Gaza."
The announcement comes a day after the Palestinian Authority “Health Ministry” announced that two residents of Gaza who returned recently from Pakistan had tested positive for the coronavirus, the first cases to be diagnosed in the territory.
The ministry said the two had been moved to isolation at a hospital in Rafah in southern Gaza.
Reshet Bet radio subsequently reported that until further notice, all restaurants, cafes and wedding venues in the Gaza Strip have been closed, and Friday prayers in mosques have been suspended.
Until that point there had been no reported cases of coronavirus in Gaza, where local authorities declared a new set of precautionary measures amid concerns about the spread of the novel coronavirus in the coastal enclave.
At the same time, dozens of cases of coronavirus have been confirmed in Palestinian Authority-assigned areas of Judea and Samaria, which is run by PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction.
Most of the cases of coronavirus in the PA have been recorded in the city of Bethlehem.