Leader of Hamas in Gaza Yahya Sinwar threatened Thursday that if the Gaza Strip faced a shortage of ventilators with which to treat its corona patients, Hamas would "cut off the air" to Israelis
"Let me tell [Defense Minister] Bennett, if we find that corona patients in Gaza can't breathe, we will cut off the air to six million Zionists and take what we want from you," Sinwar said in an interview to Al-Aqsa TV, which is affiliated with Hamas.
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Sinwar suggested that Bennett review Chapter 17 of the Book of Ezekiel to see "what awaits you and your filthy entity." Ezekiel 17 prophesies doom.
Sinwar said Hamas would be willing to make some concessions on the matter of the remains of Israel's missing soldiers and captive civilians who are being held captive, if Israel agreed to release elderly and sick prisoners as "a humanitarian move, given the corona crisis." However, he stressed that "we [Hamas] have told all the mediators that it is impossible to start talks about a new deal before all the prisoners who were freed in the Schalit deal [in 2011] and re-arrested are released."
On Thursday, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said that it was in need of 100 ventilators and 140 hospital beds, as well as other medical equipment. It also announced that it was tracking 1,816 Gazans who had been quarantined in 27 different treatment centers. In March, the ministry conducted 830 coronavirus tests in Gaza, most of which were negative. As of Thursday, there were 12 confirmed cases of coronavirus among the population of Gaza, all of whom were reportedly discovered by border authorities and quarantined prior to entering.
In the interview, Sinwar laid out the steps the Hamas regime was taking to contain coronavirus within its borders, including a commitment to send anyone returning to Gaza from abroad into immediate isolation.
He claimed that the Gaza Strip was in a better position to enforce that type of policy than the Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria, because Gaza had only four border crossings.
"We need to unite humanitarian efforts until we overcome the corona crisis. I am voicing solidarity with all the Arab and Islamic nations and people and all the people of the world who have been struck by this massive epidemic. I would like to express my thanks to the prisoners who have been released from the occupation's prisons and have not seen their families," he said.
"We gave this interview in order to calm our people and let them know about the steps that are being taken. We will go step by step and find our way out of this crisis, with the help of Allah," the Hamas leader said.
Sinwar also admitted that Hamas was in dire financial straits but had nevertheless allocated $1 million to "tens of thousands of families." He said that the Gaza crossings could not be shut down.
