Health officials in Gaza have imposed a full lockdown after four new cases of the novel coronavirus were detected in what appears to be the first evidence of community transmission in the impoverished enclave. 

The Islamist militant group Hamas, which rules the territory of two million Palestinians, ordered the 48-hour lockdown that began Tuesday. In an effort to slow the spread of the virus, businesses, schools, grocery stores and mosques must shut their doors and most citizens are unable to leave their homes.

The four new COVID-19 cases — three men and one woman — are members of the same family who live in the al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said. Before Monday, health authorities in Gaza had registered just 109 cases and one death from the virus, all detected at the mandated 21-day quarantine centers set up to isolate people entering Gaza through Israel or Egypt. 

“We managed to keep the virus out for this whole time, even as the virus spread across the region and the world. But we always warned that the scenario of the virus entering the Strip was possible,” a spokesperson for the ministry told the Times of Israel on Monday. “This scenario today became reality.”