Wed 03 February 2021:
Palestinians launched a COVID-19 vaccination campaign on Tuesday, with health workers receiving the first shots after the delivery of doses from Israel and international shipments expected within days.
Israel, which is carrying out an aggressive inoculation campaign for its own citizens, has faced mounting global pressure in recent weeks, including from the United Nations, to help Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip access vaccines.
Israel’s defense ministry said Sunday that it would send 5,000 vaccine doses to the Palestinian Authority to vaccinate medical workers.
“We started today,” said Palestinian Health Minister Mai al-Kaila.
She added that on Wednesday a supply of doses would be sent to Gaza, an Israeli-blockaded territory controlled by Hamas, destined for front-line workers in the enclave.
“We have given highest priority to health personnel… and those working in intensive care units,” she said in a video distributed by Palestinian television.
Medical personnel treating coronavirus patients or working in intensive care units were inoculated at Hugo Chavez hospital in the West Bank city of Ramallah, headquarters of the Palestinian Authority (PA).
“It was a wonderful step because it is crucial to protect medical staff who are dealing with COVID-19 patients from zero distance and are at risk of getting the infection,” said Bassil Bawatneh, the hospital’s director.
The PA, based in Ramallah in West Bank, has also said that it had signed contracts with four vaccine providers, including the makers of Russia’s Sputnik V.
Its procurement arrangements should be enough to cover 70% of the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza, the PA has said.
In the West Bank, home to some 2.8 million Palestinians, more than 108,000 coronavirus cases have been recorded, including 1,325 deaths.
In Gaza, a deeply-impoverished territory with an estimated two million residents, Hamas authorities have registered more than 51,000 cases, including 523 deaths.
Israel’s vaccination rollout is widely described as the world’s fastest per capita, with more than 3 million of the country’s 9 million people having received one of the two required Pfizer jabs.
Israel has also procured doses from Moderna, including those sent to the Palestinian Authority, officials said.
The United Nations as well as leading rights groups including Human Rights have argued that the Jewish must ensure the Palestinians are vaccinated, citing its obligations under international law as an occupying military power.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since the 1967 Six-Day War.
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