Israel to start testing Palestinian workers for COVID-19 at checkpoints

Israel’s military liaison to the Palestinians announces that it will begin testing Palestinian workers entering Israel at checkpoints.

“A worker who refuses to be checked will not be permitted to enter Israel,” a spokesperson for the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories says.

It was unclear how many workers would be checked as part of the new policy and whether COGAT would allow them to be tested elsewhere. On COGAT’s Arabic-language Facebook page, social media users bemoaned the lack of clarity, with one user writing “someone please translate, COGAT, we’ve stopped understanding you, dude.”

A spokesperson for COGAT declines a request to elaborate.

Approximately 100,000 West Bank Palestinians are legally employed in Israel or in West Bank settlements, according to the labor rights group Kav LaOved.

Both Israeli and Palestinian officials have repeatedly pointed fingers at the other side to accuse them of importing coronavirus cases into their areas.

— Aaron Boxerman