Israel urged to vaccinate Palestinians

LONDON: Amnesty International yesterday called on Israel to provide coronavirus vaccine doses to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, saying the Jewish state was obligated to do so under international law.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank, which is home to some 2.8 million Palestinians, has not publicly asked for Israeli assistance in vaccine procurement.

Hamas Islamists, who control the Gaza strip, where about two million Palestinians live, are highly unlikely to publicly coordinate with Israel in any vaccination effort.

But UK-based rights group Amnesty said Israel needed to “stop ignoring its international obligations as an occupying power and immediately act to ensure that Covid-19 vaccines are equally and fairly provided to Palestinians living under its occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip”.

The PA has said Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza will be vaccinated through the United Nations-backed Covax programme.

The Palestinian health ministry said Monday that it expected to receive its first vaccine doses next month.

Israel began inoculating its citizens, including Israeli settlers in the West Bank, on Dec 19, starting with medical workers and those over 60 years of age, and has so far injected more than a million people.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday he hoped that within a month 2.25 million Israelis — a quarter of the population of about nine million — would have received the two shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech jab needed for optimum effect.