RAMALLAH, March 31, 2021 (WAFA) – The Covid-19 infections curve in the occupied Palestinian territories in bending downward, Health Minister Mai al-Kaileh announced today.

Speaking in an interview with Voice of Palestine radio station, al-Kaileh said that the number of Covid-19 deaths has slightly dropped and the rate of hospital bed occupancy also dropped, which she described as a positive indication.

She pointed that the ministry has received 100,000 doses of Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine donated by China and 25,000 other doses of AstraZeneca vaccine, the first batch of 2 million vaccines purchased by the Palestinian government from manufacturers, which will help upscale the vaccination campaign.

Meanwhile, al-Kaileh urged human rights and humanitarian organizations to intervene to save the life of Imad Batran, a 47-year-old resident of Hebron city, who has been on a hunger strike for 40 consecutive days, the third hunger strike since 2013, in protest of his prolonged administrative detention.

She held the Israeli occupation authorities responsible for the life of al-Batran.

Israel’s widely condemned practice of administrative detention that allows the detention of Palestinians without charge or trial for renewable intervals ranging between three and six months based on undisclosed evidence that even a detainee’s lawyer is barred from viewing.

Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended hunger strikes as a way to protest their illegal administrative detention and to demand an end to this policy, which violates international law.

K.F.