A Palestinian worker makes plastic bags customized for hospitals to discard medical waste at the Al-ameer factory in the West Bank city of Hebron, on March 28, 2020. A Palestinian official announced on Saturday that six new COVID-19 cases were recorded in the West Bank, bringing the total number of cases in the Palestinian territories to 97 cases. (Photo by Mamoun Wazwaz/Xinhua)
RAMALLAH/GAZA, March 28 (Xinhua) -- A Palestinian official announced on Saturday that six new COVID-19 cases were recorded in the West Bank, bringing the total number of cases in the Palestinian territories to 97 cases.
The six new cases are Palestinians from the village of Irtas in the district of Bethlehem and the villages of Hezma and Qubaiba near Jerusalem, Ibrahim Melhem, spokesman of the Palestinian government told a news briefing in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
He said 18 cases had recovered and more recovering cases are expected within the coming days.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health earlier announced that it started to open new isolated quarantine centers in each West Bank district to make it easy for discovering more new infections.
The Palestinian government emergency committee said that it shut down the entrances of Artas in the district of Bethlehem after two cases infected with the virus were recorded.
Kammel Humeid, governor of Bethlehem canceled all permissions and facilitations that were provided to the citizens for a free movement, adding that these measures aim at preventing the spread of the virus in the entire district.
In Gaza, the Hamas-run Health Ministry announced that it decided to intensify the laboratory surveillance for the hosted cases in the quarantine centers.
Ashraf al-Qedra, the health ministry spokesman in Gaza told an earlier news briefing that the endless Israeli blockade that has been imposed on the Gaza Strip for more than 13 years "is threatening the medical sector in the enclave which lacks the needed medical equipment to combat the virus."
He called on international donors to support the medical sector in the Gaza Strip.
