Oisín McConville: Gaza facing Covid-19 lockdown, but people's resilience gives hope of survival
14-year-old Hala Sanak, who plays for Gaza’s first-ever schoolgirls’ football club, receives a Gaelic football skills training session on the Gaza beach with Armagh’s All-Ireland winner Oisín McConville. Photo: Garry Walsh/Trócaire.
Last Christmas, I travelled to Gaza with Trócaire and witnessed a place at breaking point. Crumbling infrastructure, a medical system in crisis, mass unemployment and widespread levels of trauma. Now with Christmas approaching, Covid cases are surging in Gaza and I can’t imagine how people are coping.
Until August, it seemed as though Covid had been contained in Gaza. The situation has deteriorated rapidly since then. Over 700 new cases are being detected daily. In just three months, almost 20,000 cases have been confirmed, with 102 deaths.
