The coastal road through the governorate of North Sinai is approximately 150 kilometers long. That is how far the new coronavirus traveled across the peninsula, carried by two people en route to Gaza who were quarantined when they entered the Strip. While the virus spread to several more people in Gaza, no one in North Sinai caught the disease, according to official figures. The North Sinai governorate has been under curfew for years amid an ongoing low-level insurgency waged by militants in the area. With the pandemic spreading to Egypt, a number of preventative measures have been taken in several North Sinai cities, but some residents are demanding authorities go further and seal off the governorate from the rest of the country.
On March 22, authorities in Gaza announced the detection of the first two confirmed COVID-19 cases in the enclave. The two people had traveled from Pakistan to Gaza through the Rafah border crossing.
The crossing is reached by taxi or private car, which are usually owned and operated by residents of North Sinai. These rides often make stops for rest and prayer at cafes and mosques that dot the road that begins at al-Qantara Sharq and ends at the crossing, making news of the announcement of the two coronavirus cases in Gaza reverberate across North Sinai.
A source at the North Sinai Health Directorate told Mada Masr that Palestinian authorities did not officially communicate with their Egyptian counterparts about the issue, but the news circulated online, and community efforts were quickly launched to find the driver who ferried the two COVID-19 patients to the crossing. The driver was promptly identified and his address listed online. His relatives and acquaintances were encouraged to make their way to the nearest hospital while residents also called upon authorities to find out the exact route the car took and the points at where the group stopped.
The driver, who was in the governorate of Ismailia at the time, went along with his brother to the nearest hospital, where they were both quarantined and tested. Meanwhile, authorities sent a team to disinfect his house in Sheikh Zuwayed.
A local source close to the driver told Mada Masr that the driver had hosted around 17 relatives for lunch at home just after dropping off the two Palestinians at Rafah — information that caused panic throughout Sheikh Zuwayed.
On the morning of March 23, the driver posted on Facebook that both his test and his brother’s had come back negative. Governorate officials also released a statement confirming the news and said precautionary measures were being taken at every rest stop along the highway, and that everyone who was in contact with the two positive cases was being tested. Officials also said surveillance footage of the Rafah border crossing had been examined and that anyone on the Egyptian side of the border who was in proximity to the two cases was identified and tested.
Two days after the driver and his brother’s test results came back negative, the Gaza Health Ministry announced that seven Palestinian security guards who had been in contact with the two cases tested positive. No cases were announced in North Sinai.
In the wake of the Gaza news, both North Sinai Governor General Mohamed Abdel Fadil Shousha and the health directorate stated that the governorate was free from the coronavirus. But the close encounter prompted residents to call on the governor and the security apparatus to seal off the governorate from the rest of the country. There was precedent: two years ago during the military’s Operation Sinai 2018, ferries were blocked from sailing across the Suez Canal to Sinai and entry to and exit from North Sinai was restricted to those who had secured permission from the authorities.
On March 31, in his weekly interview with North Sinai Radio, Shousha said that sealing the entire governorate off was completely impossible. He explained that many essential goods are imported into the governorate and that medical cases often need to be transferred out. Instead of closing the governorate off to the outside, he said preventative measures would be more effective to keep the area free of the virus.
Officers were deployed from various health districts to the governorates border areas to check travelers for symptoms. Shousha said that medical teams were posted at all five entrances to the governorate: the Balouza point on the northern road, and the Jafjafa, al-Jadi, Sadr al-Heitan and Ras al-Naqab points on the road that connects the governorates of North and South Sinai.
On March 28, the North Sinai Health Directorate deployed monitors with hand-held thermometers from the Epidemiology Department at the Preventive Medicine Division to check people moving in or out of the governorate, a source at the directorate told Mada Masr. The monitors were posted at Balouza, the primary entrance point on the Qantara- Sharq-Rafah International Road, which is jointly operated by the military and the police, the source said.
The monitoring team was tasked with documenting the names of outside visitors, where they were staying, and which route they were taking. Then, they were to inform the relevant health district, which would then follow up with the guests over the phone during their stay, according to the source.
The measures initially reassured the local community, but it wasn’t long before people began reporting on social media that they didn’t see any monitors at Balouza and that they were being waved through onto the Qantara Sharq-Rafah International Road without any checks. The reports caused outrage online.
In response, the North Sinai Directorate of Health Affair posted a video on their official Facebook page showing temperature checks being conducted on travelers passing through the Balouza checkpoint. The health director also appears in the footage. Meanwhile, Governor Shousha denied reports that people were not being checked. During his radio interview, Shousha said that some people coming into the governorate via the northern road take shortcuts to bypass the Balouza checkpoint and pledged to call on security forces to close any alternate routes.
Yet three people who entered Arish city separately through Balouza at the time told Mada Masr that they were not checked as they came in, though one of the travelers did say he saw an official with a handheld thermometer sitting at the checkpoint.
The nationwide measures announced by the government last month to try to curb the spread of the virus — including a nighttime curfew — did not represent a drastic change to daily life in the cities of North Sinai. Both Arish and Sheikh Zuwayed have been under curfew since 2014, the former from 1 am to 5 am, and the latter from 7 pm to 5 am. Residents shared jokes on social media, saying that their home governorate was now under a “double curfew” and offering courses in “life under curfew” from their years of experience.
However, the pandemic did cause some panicked moments.
A rumor quickly spread that a 24-hour curfew would be imposed over the weekend, causing overcrowding in the main markets in downtown Arish on Thursday, March 26. Vendors confirmed they would not be open for business, prompting families to stock up on foodstuffs, produce and poultry.
The scene was reminiscent of a similar wave of frantic shopping in the early days of Operation Sinai 2018, in February of that year, as the governorate was sealed off from the rest of the country and only limited supplies of food were allowed in over the following five months.
Despite warnings to avoid large gatherings, dozens also queued up at ATMs to retrieve cash. “People are broke, living paycheck to paycheck. How does the coronavirus change the fact that they need to feed their kids?” Mohamed Attia, a public sector employee who works in Arish, told Mada Masr. He blamed the packed queues on the government. “They should have released funds in waves, allocating specific days for specific entities,” Attia said. “Employees of each government entity would get three days to cash their salaries. This would have minimized the overcrowding.”
Yet incidents of large crowds lining up at ATMs did not start with the onset of the pandemic. It has been a persistent problem in North Sinai due to a shortage of ATMs. Out of the six cities in North Sinai, only Arish has ATMs — with 25 machines between six branches that serve approximately 199,000 people in the city and a total of 460,000 people in the entire governorate.
According to the North Sinai Governorate’s Statistical Yearbook of 2013, approximately 46,000 people work for the government and the public sector. All of these employees must be paid electronically, by order of a 2015 executive decree by the Finance Ministry, meaning that tens of thousands of employees have to withdraw their salaries from ATMs.
The Arish City Council, which is located near a number of the ATMS, did little to address the problem and resolved only to post a statement on Facebook urging citizens to “avoid crowding at ATMs and in shops.”
Despite the crowds and lack of social distancing, Governor Shousha stated two weeks ago that there were no coronavirus cases in the governorate, crediting the preventive measures put in place.
In the meantime, residents have taken it upon themselves to sanitize a number of streets, shops, and the facades of houses in some Arish and Bir al-Abed neighborhoods with a diluted chlorine solution. Similar community-based efforts were made to distribute protective equipment — gloves, facemasks and rubbing alcohol — to the public on a major street in downtown Arish.
Authorities also disinfected government buildings, the Arish University campus, schools, main markets and some parks in the city. Additionally, youth centers and wedding halls were ordered shut in an official statement, and a ban on memorial services was announced.
