[ad_1]
Health Ministry officials reportedly believe that failure to provide the vaccines from stocks it has purchased from the Palestinian Authority would be a misstep.
In recent days there have been reports that the World Health Organization asked Israel to send vaccines to the Palestinian Authority, but Jerusalem said it would not do so at this time.
Ramallah has yet to publicly ask Israel, which has become a world leader in vaccination, to take responsibility for providing vaccines to Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. However, he has criticized Israel for not doing so.
Get The Times of Israel Daily Issue By Email And Never Miss Our Top Stories Sign Up For Free
Unidentified Israeli health officials told Channel 12 on Monday that ignoring the Palestinians would be unwise from an epidemiological point of view. “We cannot have tens of thousands of unvaccinated people entering Israeli territory,” the network quoted them as saying.
Tens of thousands of Palestinian workers from the West Bank enter Israel every day, although some restrictions have been placed on their entry during national closures.
A Palestinian health worker takes test samples for the coronavirus at a health center in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on January 5, 2020 (Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90).
Deputy Minister of Health MK Yoav Kisch told Channel 12: “Israeli citizens come first. Only after we have finished vaccinating all residents of the country can we consider any other requests, including those from the Palestinian Authority. ”
Health officials who spoke to the network agreed with the preferential order established by Kisch, but said that they “would definitely like to see Palestinians vaccinated,” adding that not doing so would also put the health of Israelis at risk.
Pressed on the same issue during an interview Monday with British Sky News, Health Minister Yuli Edelstein insisted that Palestinians “have to learn to take care of themselves.”
“I don’t think there is anyone in this country, whatever their views, who can imagine that they would take a vaccine from the Israeli citizen and, with all goodwill, give it to our neighbors,” he said. said
Edelstein noted that Israel has been helping the Palestinians, including through the transfer of medical equipment, since the early days of the pandemic.
The Rapid Response Team of the Department of Preventive Medicine of the Palestinian Ministry of Health collects test samples for coronavirus at a health center in Rafah, a city in the southern Gaza Strip, on November 25, 2020 (Photo by Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90).
“We understand that it is in Israel’s interests that there are fewer cases on the Palestinian side,” he clarified. “Many of the Palestinians are working here in Israel. You can’t clearly divide the two and say, you know, ‘They can deal with it themselves; it’s not our problem. ‘ It’s our problem. “
When asked if Israel would provide vaccines to Palestinians once its population is fully vaccinated, Edelstein replied: “We will definitely consider it, but as I said, I sincerely hope that by that time part of its population will be vaccinated with the different vaccines that they need “. they are trying to buy. If any other help is needed, we will offer it. “
Indeed, Palestinian Authority Health Minister Mai al-Kaila announced on Monday that an agreement has been officially reached between Russia and the Palestinian Authority to provide the Moscow Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine to Palestinians.
Russia’s Direct Investment Fund said in a statement that the vaccine shipment will arrive in the West Bank next month. Palestinian health officials had previously speculated that Sputnik vaccines could arrive by the end of December, although those predictions proved unfounded.
Public health experts have been skeptical of the Russian vaccine, claiming it was produced and released without sufficiently stringent testing mechanisms.
Over the weekend, Palestinian health officials announced that they had signed an agreement with AstraZeneca and were anticipating the arrival of their first major shipment of vaccines in late February.
“We have received a formal letter from the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca that on February 15, the vaccines will arrive in Palestine … between the middle and end of the month,” said Palestinian Authority Health Ministry spokesman Kamal al-Shakhra, a Voice of Palestine Radio. on Saturday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (right) and Health Minister Yuli Edelstein (center) attend a ceremony for the arrival of a plane carrying a shipment of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, at the airport Ben Gurion near the Israeli city of Tel Aviv in January. 10, 2021. (Motti MILLROD / POOL / AFP)
The Palestinian Authority, which has tried to import vaccines for Palestinian residents of the West Bank and Gaza, has set various deadlines for the arrival of immunizations, including at the end of last December. So far, not all the deadlines have been met.
Israel has already administered the first doses to more than 1.7 million people out of a population of 9.29 million, by far the highest vaccination rate in the world. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to speed up the inoculation campaign to 170,000 doses a day in a bid to end Israel’s coronavirus pandemic by the end of March.
On Saturday, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said Israel was neglecting its obligations to provide immunizations to Palestinians “in accordance with international law.”
“Israel is trying to exonerate itself of its responsibilities as an occupying power and place all responsibility on the Palestinian government,” the Palestinian Authority Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
“The search by Palestinian leaders to obtain the vaccines from various sources does not relieve Israel of its duties towards the Palestinian people to provide the vaccines,” the Foreign Ministry added.
However, on Sunday, the Palestinian Authority Foreign Ministry backtracked to clarify that Israel’s legal obligations to the welfare of the Palestinians did not constitute “an abdication in any way of the responsibilities of the State of Palestine towards the people. Palestinian, including the provision of medical care and COVID vaccines. ” . “
Most of Israel’s vaccines come from Pfizer, which the Palestinian Authority has acknowledged would have trouble storing in the required subzero conditions.
Palestinian officials also fiercely denied media reports in the Israeli press last week alleging a secret transfer of several thousand shots for “humanitarian purposes”.
Members of the Palestinian security forces impose a lockdown following the spread of the coronavirus in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on December 18, 2020 (Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90).
“The Health Ministry did not receive any vaccines from Israel,” Osama al-Najjar, a senior health official for the Palestinian Authority, told The Times of Israel at the time.
Ramallah also relies on an internationally backed mechanism known as COVAX, which aims to provide free coronavirus vaccines for around 90 participating countries that could not otherwise afford injections. If all goes according to plan, COVAX will provide enough doses to immunize around 20% of Palestinians.
But COVAX vaccines are unlikely to reach Ramallah or Gaza City for quite some time. The World Health Organization, a key sponsor of COVAX, has not yet approved any vaccine for use in the program. The launch will also be relatively slow. An initial batch of vaccines, enough to inoculate 3% of the Palestinian population, will be sent to Ramallah for use by priority groups before more doses are phased out.
Free vaccines are scheduled to start being allocated in February, while delivery could be as late as mid-year, according to the World Health Organization.
[ad_2]
