Gaza reports first death case of coronavirus

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza on Saturday reported the first death from COVID-19 in the Palestinian enclave.

In a press statement emailed to reporters, the ministry said the death case is a 77-year-old woman from the district of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip who died at the quarantine hospital near the border with Egypt earlier in the day.

The woman, identified as Fadila Abu Reida, returned from Egypt last week through the Rafah Border Crossing, it added.

A total of 55 people in Gaza have been infected with the coronavirus since March 5, according to the statement.

The death toll of the virus in the Palestinian territories has reached five, with two in the West Bank, two in East Jerusalem, and one in the Gaza Strip.

Both the Palestinian Authority that rules the West Bank and Hamas, ruler of the Gaza Strip, recently tightened the precautionary measures against the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Eyad al-Bozzom, spokesman of the Hamas-run ministry of interior, told a news briefing in Gaza that no infection cases have been recorded in the populated areas in the Gaza Strip.

So far, 16 patients have recovered from COVID-19 in Gaza, while the others are in stable conditions, he revealed.