Palestinian leaders have announced that they expect their first batch of coronavirus vaccines to arrive before March, as the West Bank and Gaza wait to find a job while Israel pushes proceed with their vaccination campaign for record setting.
This week the Palestinian Authority said it had reached a temporary agreement with AstraZeneca and was seeking doses from Moderna, in addition to the Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine.
Palestinians are also working with the World Health Organization to obtain free vaccines under the Covax scheme.
It came when Palestinian officials opposed Israel for not “evading” its duties as an occupying power to help them protect their people from the disease.
“The study by the Palestinian leadership to obtain the vaccines from different places does not free Israel from its obligations to the Palestinian people in providing the vaccines,” the Palestinian foreign ministry said in a statement.
Israel opposes this and says it has no legal obligation to provide vaccines for the West Bank and Gaza, as the peace of Oslo says this is the responsibility of Palestinian leaders.
However, according to Israeli media reports, the Israeli government handed over 100 doses of vaccines to the Palestinian authorities earlier this month as a “humanitarian movement. “
Israel has already given the first coronavirus injection to more than two million people – about 20 percent of the population – as part of the world’s fastest vaccination program.
Oslo treaties from the 1990s provide limited autonomy for the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank while the Gaza Strip is controlled by the Islamic group Hamas.
While the boxes state that Palestinian authorities should vaccinate their own citizens, they also say that both sides must “cooperate in the fight” against pandemics and infectious diseases. .
Arab-Israeli citizens, and Palestinians living in East Jerusalem, are already able to receive vaccines from the Israeli program. But human rights groups, such as Amnesty International, are urging the Israeli government to provide more support.
In a recent statement, Amnesty’s deputy regional director for the Middle East, Saleh Higazi, accused Israel of “institutional discrimination.”
“As Israel marks a record-setting vaccine campaign, millions of Palestinians living under Israeli control in the West Bank and Gaza Strip will not get vaccinated or have to wait much longer,” he said.
Husam Zomlot, a Palestinian senior diplomat in London, described the situation as an “apartheid vaccine” in a Twitter post, an allegation that Israel denies.
Palestinian officials said Wednesday that they had recorded 30 deaths from coronavirus in the past 24 hours, while more than 90 people are in intensive care units.
To date, coronavirus has caused approximately 1,800 deaths in Palestinian territories.