(AFP): Israel has finally agreed to send 5,000 COVID-19 vaccine shots to Palestine to inoculate medical personnel, its defence ministry said Sunday, following global pressure to ensure Palestinians are vaccinated.
“I confirm we are going to send 5,000 vaccines to medical teams in the Palestinian National Authority,’ a spokesperson for Defence Minister Benny Gantz told an international news agency.
She said they were from Israeli supplies, but declined to say whether they were Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna. A Palestinian official, who requested anonymity, dismissed the shipment as a symbolic move. “It will not help us,” the official told.
Israeli authorities have launched an aggressive campaign to vaccinate its own citizens, but the shots have not been made available to Palestinians in the West Bank, occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six Day War.
More than three million of the country’s nine million people have received the first of two required jabs of the Pfizer vaccine so far. In recent weeks, the United Nations and rights groups have piled pressure on Israel to help some 4.8 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Israeli-blockaded Gaza to access vaccines.
Meanwhile, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) has urged the international community “to hold Israel to account” and ensure that it provides vaccines to all Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.
