Policy Lab

Coronavirus in Palestine: Confronting the Vulnerability of Indigenous Bodies

by Yara Asi, Osama Tanous, Nur Arafeh on April 7, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic has reached Palestine, and in doing so has brought to the surface latent power structures that render Palestinians particularly exposed to the virus.

In this policy lab, host Nur Arafeh speaks with analysts Yara Asi and Osama Tanous about the Palestinian health system's capacity to handle a pandemic, the myths of Gaza's exceptionalism, and the ways in which Israel's settler-colonial project has re-shaped Palestinian bodies, as well as their nutrition and surrounding environments, to render them most vulnerable to health crises such as this.

Yara Asi

Dr. Yara M. Asi is a Post-Doctoral scholar at the University of Central Florida, where she has taught in the Department of Health Management and Informatics for more than 6 years. She is a 2020-2021 Fulbright US Scholar to the West Bank. Her research focuses on global health and development in fragile and conflict-affected populations. Along with working at one of the first accountable care organizations in the United States, she has also worked with Amnesty International USA, the Arab Center Washington DC, the Palestinian American Research Center, and Al-Shabaka: Palestinian Policy Network on policy and outreach issues. She has presented on topics related to global health, food security, health informatics, and women in healthcare, and has published extensively her research in journal articles, book chapters, and other outlets. Dr. Asi's forthcoming book with Johns Hopkins University Press about the threats war and conflict pose to public health and human security.