ISRAEL TO TRANSFER SOME 5,000 CORONAVIRUS VACCINES TO PALESTINIANS

Sun 31 January 2021:

Israel has one of the most advanced vaccination programmes in the world but Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza have yet to see one.

Israel has agreed to transfer 5,000 doses of the coronavirus vaccine to the Palestinians to immunize front-line medical workers, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s office announced Sunday.

The World Health Organization has raised concerns about the disparity between Israel and Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, and international human rights groups and U.N. experts have said Israel is responsible for the well being of Palestinians in these areas.

Israel says that under interim peace agreements reached in the 1990s it is not responsible for the Palestinians and in any case has not received requests for help.

The Palestinian Authority has been trying to acquire doses through a WHO program known as COVAX. But the program, which aims to procure vaccines for needed countries, has been slow to get off the ground.

Israel has recorded some 640,000 Covid cases since the pandemic began, and just over 4,700 deaths, Johns Hopkins University research shows. There have been almost 160,000 cases in the West Bank and Gaza, with 1,833 deaths, the research shows.

On Friday the WHO warned against “vaccine nationalism”, saying there was a “real danger that the very tools that could help to end the pandemic – vaccines – may exacerbate” global inequality.