{"id":5316,"date":"2020-04-06T12:46:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-06T12:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/?p=5316"},"modified":"2020-07-08T12:51:24","modified_gmt":"2020-07-08T12:51:24","slug":"isolation-a-double-edged-sword-for-west-banks-bedouin-herders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/?p=5316","title":{"rendered":"Isolation a Double-Edged Sword for West Bank\u2019s Bedouin Herders"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>By Reuters<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>April 6, 2020, 6:03 a.m. ET <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> AL UBEIDIYA, West Bank \u2014 Bedouin herders in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, already isolated by virtue of their nomadic lifestyle, have become more cut off than ever from ordinary Palestinian life since the coronavirus outbreak began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That isolation is a double-edged sword. They say their mobility makes them less vulnerable to catching the infection, but a territory-wide lockdown imposed to slow the spread of the disease means they are no longer able to sell their farm produce in local villages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some 30,000 Palestinians live in the pastoral encampments scattered across the West Bank, where sheep are herded along uninhabited hills and rocky valleys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They have largely been spared the restrictions imposed in towns and villages, where 240 cases of COVID-19 and one fatality have been documented.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is why the Bedouin lifestyle is better than the cities,&#8221; said Salameh Safi, 75, a shepherd on a donkey tending his flock near Bethlehem and sporting a red-and-white keffiyeh to shield his eyes from the early spring sun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But Mohammad Ishak, 53, a Bedouin near Jericho in the Jordan Valley, said he could no longer gain access to nearby communities to sell cheese and other sheep products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;We will suffer losses because the farming sector has taken a hit,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;We can\u2019t reach Ramallah or any other city to sell,&#8221; added Sulaiman al-Zaher, 65, another Bedouin near Jericho.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ali Abed Rabbo, general director of preventive medicine at the Palestinian Health Ministry, told Reuters the herders&#8217; lifestyle might put them at an advantage in terms of not catching the virus &#8211; &#8220;but on condition none of them mixes with residents of the cities and the villages.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(Writing by Rami Ayyub; editing by <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Reuters April 6, 2020, 6:03 a.m. ET AL UBEIDIYA, West Bank \u2014 Bedouin herders in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, already isolated by virtue of their nomadic lifestyle, have become more cut off than ever from ordinary Palestinian life since the coronavirus outbreak began. That isolation is a double-edged sword. They say their mobility makes &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5316"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5316"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5318,"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5316\/revisions\/5318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jahalin.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}