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April 2, 2020
ADALAH’S NEWS
March 2020

 
In response to the grave threat posed by the coronavirus to the health and basic wellbeing of Palestinians in Israel and the OPT, Adalah launched a series of urgent legal cases to promote their access to health services and dignified living conditions, and to protect their civil liberties, focusing on the most vulnerable groups.

(Photo: United States National Institute of Health)

While the coronavirus affects all, regardless of identity, national belonging, color or class, in Israel and the OPT, the existing structures of inequality and the Israeli government’s responses to the pandemic are resulting in unequal access to health information, facilities and social and economic welfare services, and is creating new threats to civil liberties through the use of draconian emergency regulations to contain the pandemic.
 
PROMOTING ACCESS TO HEALTH SERVICES
 
Magen David Adom paramedics preparing to treat coronavirus victims in February 2020. (Photo: Magen David Adom/Facebook)
Palestinian citizens of Israel have access to fewer and poorer quality healthcare facilities in their towns and villages, particularly the Bedouins living in the unrecognized villages in Naqab. Adalah is working to ensure that the government’s emergency response does not leave these communities unnecessarily exposed to the pandemic through substandard protection and limited access to emergency medical services. 
 
● Adalah demanded that the Israeli Health Ministry publish up-to-date, essential public health information on the coronavirus in Arabic. Following Adalah’s letters to the Israeli Health Ministry, it began releasing more online material in Arabic on all its media platforms.
● We also demanded access to emergency medical services, testing centers in Arab towns, and heightened preparedness of hospitals in the Naqab (Negev), in the Triangle (in the center) and in the north, where the majority of the Palestinian population in Israel lives.

Adalah demanded access to emergency medical services for Palestinian citizens in the unrecognized Bedouin villages in the Naqab and in Umm Al-Fahem and other Palestinian towns in the Triangle, promptly and to their homes, as provided to Jewish Israeli citizens of the state. Ambulances and other emergency services do not enter unrecognized villages in the Naqab in normal times because of poor access roads, and in some cases refuse to enter Arab towns like Umm Al-Fahem.
● Testing for the coronavirus remains very low in Palestinian communities throughout the state, resulting in low rates of detection. The Government had announced drive-in testing centers in four main Israeli cities, all of which are relatively far from several areas with large numbers of Palestinian citizens. Adalah therefore demanded coronavirus drive-in test centers in the Triangle area and for Palestinian Bedouin residents of the unrecognized villages in the Naqab, who have little-to-no access to health clinics and no public transport. In response, mobile testing centers started operating in several Arab towns. On 1 April, we filed a Supreme Court petition demanding drive-in test stations in the Naqab and the designation of more ambulances to serve this vulnerable community.
● Adalah and Joint List MK Aida Touma-Suleiman demanded that hospitals in Nazareth, the largest Arab town in the state, be properly equipped to treat coronavirus patients. In the absence of a government-run hospital in the area, the three small private hospitals in Nazareth provide healthcare for large numbers of Palestinian citizens in the north and the Triangle area but lack adequate equipment for the crisis. 
● In coordination with the Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem, Adalah sent a letter to the Health Ministry on 1 April asking that coronavirus tests be made available immediately through drive-in stations and local and mobile clinics for the 350,000 Palestinians living in East Jerusalem. Few tests have been conducted in this community, and residents are gravely concerned about the spread of the virus.

 
Media highlights:+972 Magazine, Moment Magazine, +972 Magazine, and The New Arab

 
PROMOTING DIGNIFIED LIVING CONDITIONS
 
Palestinian workers at a construction site in Israel
Adalah is demanding Israeli government action to prevent unnecessary deterioration in the already poor living conditions of many Palestinian individuals and communities  In many aspects, the government’s response to prevent the spread of the virus is in fact escalating oppression, especially among Palestinian prisoners and workers from the OPT, and they are being left without protection.
 
● Even as Israel shut down all but essential services to slow the spread of the coronavirus, it continued to demolish homes and destroy dozens of acres of agricultural land in Bedouin villages in the Naqab. Following a joint letter sent by 23 NGOs to the Attorney General, the authorities announced that they were temporarily halting home demolitions and the razing of crops for the time being. 
● Adalah submitted a motion to the Supreme Court seeking the freezing of the implementation of a
discriminatory law that permits revocation of all social welfare benefits from parents of minors convicted of throwing stones - overwhelmingly Palestinians from East Jerusalem. Adalah, which has been challenging this law, argued that the coronavirus crisis had placed an enormous economic burden on families and that no additional burden should be imposed at this time. 
● Adalah sent an urgent letter to Israeli authorities calling for the rights of Palestinian workers from the occupied West Bank to be upheld, demanding that Israeli employers provide them with proper housing and living conditions, and that they be given access to health facilities and protection against the coronavirus. Workers from the West Bank are allowed to work in Israel during this crisis, mainly in construction, to keep Israel’s construction sector from collapsing. However, they have been banned from returning home for at least one or two months. While in Israel, they have no health insurance, and have been excluded from the protection measures applied by the state to all workplaces. 
● Adalah submitted a pre-petition to the Attorney General’s Office on behalf of the High Follow-up Committee for Arab Education, demanding that the Education Ministry provide equal access to learning materials and distance learning programs in Arabic for Palestinian school-aged children in Israel. As Israel closed all schools on 13 March, approximately 540,000 Palestinian children citizens of Israel remain at home along with their Jewish counterparts.

● Adalah, Addameer, and Attorney Abeer Baker petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court to demand that the government rescind emergency regulations approved during the coronavirus crisis banning prisoners held by Israel from meeting with lawyers and families, and to demand their access to telephones. The petitioners argued that, while the regulations harm all prisoners held in Israeli facilities, they are particularly dangerous for individuals designated by the Israel Prison Service (IPS) as “security prisoners”- overwhelmingly Palestinians from the OPT, numbering around 5,000, who face the harshest conditions of incarceration. An emergency court hearing is set  for 2 April. 
● Adalah also sent a letter to the IPS and Health Ministry demanding that they ensure proper health and hygiene measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus in prisons, and to provide health care for patients. Additionally, six Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations issued a joint statement calling for a drastic change in Israeli prison policy to promote health and save the lives of prisoners. 
PROTECTING CIVIL LIBERTIES
Photo: Shin Bet/YouTube
The Israeli government’s resort to emergency regulations during the coronavirus crisis has the potential to violate the civil liberties of all citizens, and the Palestinian minority is at greatest risk from such measures. Adalah is working to ensure that the government cannot bypass the legislature and hide behind a general state of emergency to implement authoritarian policies, and that it does not exploit this public health emergency to grant excessive powers to its intelligence and security services.

Adalah, the Arab Joint List, ACRI, and others, filed petitions to the Israeli Supreme Court challenging two emergency regulations decreed by the government that allow the state secret intelligence agency (GSS) and the police to track the cellphones of corona patients and persons found in the vicinity of individuals who tested positive for the virus, without parliamentary oversight. In response, the Court issued a temporary injunction on 19 March limiting these practices. Following the court’s decision, the Knesset Subcommittee for Intelligence and Secret Services held discussions and confirmed a governmental decision to authorize the GSS to conduct surveillance based on the GSS Law (and not the emergency regulations) through 30 April. As for location tracking by the police, the government is advancing legislation in this regard (opposed by Adalah in a letter sent on 1 April), as those emergency regulations will expire on 8 April. Adalah will continue to pursue the case, arguing that the use of the state’s intelligence and security agencies is dangerous and violates the constitutional rights of dignity and privacy.  
 
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Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel · 94 Yaffa Street · PO Box 8921 · Haifa 31090 · Israel